[Null POV] Year 0, Day 50

  The sensation of teleportation was unlike anything Null had ever experienced.

  Not movement. Not travel. Just... transition. Reality folding around her, space compressing, distance becoming irrelevant. One moment she was in the Guild hall meeting room, the next—

  Desert.

  Endless sand stretching in every direction. The sun beating down mercilessly. Heat radiating from the ground in visible waves.

  The Desert of Nothing. Again.

  But different location. The landmarks were unfamiliar. No oasis nearby. No hidden sanctuary. Just pure, empty wasteland as far as she could see.

  The twins released the teleportation key simultaneously. The box vanished back into one of their uniforms with practiced motion.

  They looked at her with unified smiles. Fox ears twitching with excitement.

  And then they communicated—that strange telepathic method Null had observed back in the meeting room. Emotions and intentions broadcast outward. Readable to anyone sensitive enough to perceive them.

  Null had watched them do this with Ealdred. Had understood their meaning without words through sheer emotional perception.

  But understanding and responding were different things.

  The twins projected again. Welcome... playground... play with us?

  The meaning was clear through the emotional component. But Null had no idea how to reply. Her few words of local language were useless here. The twins weren't using language at all.

  She tried to copy what she'd seen them do. Gathered her thoughts—her acknowledgment, her confusion about what came next—and tried to push them outward the way the twins seemed to do naturally.

  Nothing happened.

  The twins tilted their heads, waiting.

  Null tried again. Focused harder. Taking the emotional component she wanted to convey and forcing it out like she'd seen them do.

  A flicker. Something. The twins' ears perked slightly.

  "Big sister is trying! Keep going~!"

  Again. Stronger. More deliberate. "I understand. What now?"

  The twins' faces lit up immediately.

  "Big sister learned! Big sister speaks our secret language~!"

  Through the bond, Spy's voice carried surprise. ?That actually worked. You just replicated their communication method after seeing it once.?

  "I watched them do it. Just copied the technique."

  ?Most people probably can't do that. This is some strange mix of telepathy and emotion projection. Similar to your soul bond with Void but without actual bonding. No permanent link. Just temporary broadcasting. You're surprisingly talented at adapting to problematic situations.?

  The twins were bouncing now, genuinely excited.

  "Nobody else uses our language! Only Master can, but he doesn't like to. Says it's messy and imprecise. But big sister learned! Big sister speaks with us properly now~!"

  "Most people can't do this?"

  "No! Words are easy for them. Feelings are hard. We're opposite. Feelings easy, words hard. That's why it's secret language! Special! Only for special people~!"

  Through the bond: ?Well. At least we can communicate now. That's critical.?

  ?Agreed. Being stranded with no way to talk would have been a disaster.?

  The twins grabbed Null's hands, pulling her attention back to them.

  "Now we play! Game time! Ready~?"

  "What game?"

  "Fighting game! We show our real forms. You show yours. We battle! Rules: bodies and magic only. No weapons. Safe word stops everything. Fun~!"

  "What's the safe word?"

  "'Stop!' Simple! Easy to remember! Anyone says it, everyone stops immediately. No exceptions~"

  "We're fighting? Now? Just like that?"

  "Yes! Master said you'd be fun to play with. Said you're like us. Special. Strong. Different~"

  They started changing.

  Magic rippled across their small forms. The maid uniforms dissolved, replaced by something else. Something that hurt to look at directly.

  Their bodies twisted, merged, separated again. Fox features became more pronounced, more alien. Tails multiplied—not just the few they'd shown before, but dozens. Hundreds. A mass of tails that seemed to exist in too many dimensions simultaneously.

  Their unified form grew. Expanded. Became something that defied easy description. Two bodies that were somehow also one entity. Flesh and fur and magic intertwined in ways that shouldn't be possible.

  And through her Life Sense, Null perceived their true nature.

  Souls. Multiple souls. Not two. Not even a dozen.

  N+1 souls scattered across two physical forms. Fragmented. Overlapping. All sharing the same emotions—mostly—but SO many of them. Each one feeling incomplete. Like pieces of a whole that had been shattered and distributed incorrectly.

  Null tried to process it. To understand the pattern. To map how they existed.

  Her head felt like it was going to explode.

  Too much information. Too many contradictions. Too many souls in too few bodies experiencing too many of the same feelings with slight variations that suggested each fragment was both individual and collective simultaneously.

  She pulled back her perception, gasping.

  "What ARE you?"

  "We're us! Now you show too~"

  Right. Her turn.

  Null let go of her human form. Let the disguise drop. Let herself become what she actually was.

  The transformation was instant. Liberating.

  Her body stopped being constrained by the concept of "human shape" and became something else. Something that existed in directions that shouldn't be possible. Mass that rippled and shifted and refused to stay in three dimensions properly.

  Her eldritch horror form. Her true self.

  For the first time since the caravan massacre, she was showing it. Being it. Not hiding. Not pretending. Just existing as the apex predator she'd been reconstructed as.

  It felt incredible.

  The twins looked at her transformed state with their too-many eyes.

  "Ooooh! You DO have one! Big weird shadow thing! So cool~"

  "Big... weird... that's one way to describe it."

  "You're like big sister now! Older! Stronger! We're little sisters who play with big sister~"

  "I'm not your—" Null started, then stopped. They were already committed to this dynamic. And honestly? She didn't entirely hate it.

  "Ready~?" The twins asked, their merged-separated form coiling with barely contained energy.

  Null felt her own power responding. The hunger for combat. The desire to actually USE her abilities without restraint. Without worrying about exposure or consequences or collateral damage.

  Just pure, unrestrained violence between entities that could handle it.

  "Ready."

  The twins attacked.

  They moved as one entity despite being two bodies. Flowing around each other, through each other, creating angles of attack that shouldn't be geometrically possible. Physical strikes from impossible directions. Mass that existed in multiple places simultaneously.

  Null met them head-on.

  Her form shifted, adapted, created appendages specifically designed to counter their assault. Blades that cut through their mass. Tendrils that grabbed and threw. Defensive structures that absorbed impact and redirected force.

  The first exchange was explosive.

  Sand vaporized. The ground cracked. The air itself seemed to scream from the forces being unleashed.

  Null laughed. Actually laughed with pure joy.

  This was what she'd been missing. What VR could never fully replicate. The sensation of using her body—her real body, her actual capabilities—without limits. Without holding back. Without pretending to be something weaker.

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  Everything was connected. Every movement flowed naturally. Every instinct translated perfectly into action. The feedback was immediate, visceral, real in ways that simulated combat could never achieve.

  The twins pressed their advantage, their dual bodies creating complex attack patterns. One would strike high while the other went low. Feints from one direction, real attacks from another. Coordination that should have been impossible but worked perfectly through their unified consciousness.

  Null adapted. Her superior combat instincts analyzing their patterns, finding openings, exploiting the slight delays in their coordination. She was faster. More precise. More experienced.

  Her hit ratio was better. Significantly better.

  But the twins had raw power. And durability. And the advantage of redundancy—you couldn't kill both bodies simultaneously, which meant they could take risks Null couldn't.

  The battle escalated.

  Magic joined the physical combat. The twins conjured fire—not from two sources, but from a single point between their bodies. Spy had been right. One spell origin, geometrically centered between them.

  The fire came in a massive wave. Simple spell. Brutal power. No finesse. Just overwhelming force.

  Null countered with her own magic. More refined. More controlled. Multiple elements weaving together in complex patterns.

  ?They're using single elements with delays between switches,? Spy observed through their connection. ?Watch—fire now, then they'll pause before changing to something else.?

  The twins switched to wind. Massive blast. Simple execution. Devastating force.

  Delay.

  Then lightning. Coordinated strike from that central point.

  Delay.

  ?Predictable pattern,? Spy noted. ?Exploitable. They're powerful but not sophisticated. Dumb brawlers even with magic.?

  Null used the delays. Struck during transitions. Forced them to defensive positions when they were between elements.

  Her hits landed more frequently. Her damage accumulated faster.

  But the twins just responded with pure joy.

  "Big sister is so strong! So fast! This is fun~"

  They weren't fighting to win. They were fighting to play.

  And Null realized: so was she.

  For the first time since arriving in this world, she wasn't fighting for survival. Wasn't fighting to protect Void. Wasn't fighting because someone had threatened what was hers.

  She was just... fighting. For the sake of it. For the experience. For the pure, uncomplicated joy of using her abilities against opponents who could actually handle them.

  It was exhilarating.

  The battle raged on. Time became strange when you were fighting at this level. When reality itself was being warped by the forces you were unleashing.

  The desert around them had been completely transformed. Craters everywhere. Glass where sand had been superheated. Massive gouges in the earth where attacks had missed and hit the ground instead.

  Evidence of their battle visible for great distances in every direction.

  Null was still going strong. Her energy reserves were full from the caravan massacre—five hundred people had provided immense power. The Blood Cult members afterward had added more, their strength making them particularly rich sources. She could have continued for days at this pace without concern.

  The twins were equally energetic. Whatever powered them seemed limitless. They showed no signs of fatigue, no reduction in their assault's intensity.

  Neither side was winning. Null's skill advantage balanced against the twins' raw power and dual-body coordination. Just endless back-and-forth, both sides enjoying themselves immensely.

  Then the twins suddenly stopped.

  Mid-attack. Mid-movement. Just... froze.

  "Stop! We have to stop now~"

  Null pulled back immediately, respecting the safe word.

  "Why? What's wrong?"

  "Master's threshold. We're not allowed to go past certain energy expenditure. He set limits. We're close to them~"

  "You're not even tired though."

  "We know! But rules are rules. Master said so~"

  They transformed back to their maid forms. Uniforms pristine again despite the battle. Not a hair out of place.

  Null shifted back to her human disguise as well. The maid dress reappearing, perfectly clean, showing no evidence of the chaos she'd just participated in.

  "That was amazing," Null projected, the communication method feeling more natural now. "Better than anything in VR. Everything felt so... real. Connected. Right."

  "VR? What's VR~?"

  "Virtual reality. Simulated combat in my old world. It was good, but this..." Null gestured at the devastated landscape around them. "This is so much better. Actual feedback. Real consequences. No artificial limits except the ones you actually have."

  "Big sister liked our game!" The twins were practically bouncing with joy. "We like big sister! She's strong and fun and doesn't break when we play"

  "You're the first people I've fought who could actually keep up. Everyone else has been too weak. The fights end too quickly. This was... perfect. Thank you."

  "Thank YOU, big sister! This was best game in so long~"

  They hugged her simultaneously. Two small bodies tackling Null from opposite sides. Affection radiating from them despite their fragmented souls and strange nature.

  Null stood there awkwardly, not sure how to respond. Physical affection wasn't something she'd experienced much. The gesture was foreign but... nice?

  "Big sister?" she repeated, testing the term.

  "Yes! You're older and stronger and teach us fun games. That makes you big sister~"

  "I'm not sure that's how family relationships work."

  "It's how WE say it works! And we're special, so we make our own rules~"

  Null couldn't argue with that logic. Mostly because she had no framework for arguing with childish monster logic.

  "So what now?"

  The twins released her and stepped back, grinning identically.

  "Now we race! First one to the border! First one to catch monster! Ready~?"

  "The Church State border?"

  "Yes! That's our feeding ground. Master lets us hunt there whenever we want. It's fun~"

  "Why specifically there?"

  The twins' expressions shifted. Still smiling, but with something darker underneath.

  "Master killed a Pope once. Long time ago. The Pope did something bad to one of Master's maids. Master got very angry. Killed him."

  Null processed that projection—the emotional weight behind it suggesting truth, but filtered through childish understanding.

  "Wait. A Pope? One of the most important people on the continent? And he's still alive? No punishment?"

  The twins' expressions shifted slightly. Like remembering something unpleasant.

  "We saw it. Master used him like rag against wall. Hit. Hit. Hit. Wall very red after. Pope very flat~"

  The childish delivery somehow made the image worse. More disturbing.

  "Sometimes Church people and Master hate each other. Say bad things. We don't really understand why. Master doesn't explain. Just says we can feed at their border. So we do~"

  They paused, then added more seriously—as serious as their childish projection could manage.

  "Oh! But big sister—we're not allowed to say we do it. Master makes us wear masks when we feed there. Says no direct pointing fingers. We have to keep it secret. You have to keep the secret too, okay~?"

  "Secret. Right."

  "Important! Master said if Church finds out for sure, there's problems. But as long as nobody proves it, they just suspect and get angry but can't do anything~"

  Spy through the bond: ?So either there WERE consequences and he's avoiding them through plausible deniability, or the twins are unreliable narrators. Either way, secrets required.?

  ?Noted. We keep it quiet.? Null agreed.

  "One more question before we race," Null projected. "You mentioned feeding here is allowed. Master's permission. But do you actually need to feed? Or do you just enjoy it?"

  The twins looked at each other. A moment of silent communication. Then back to Null.

  "We need to. It hurts if we don't. Not terrible hurt, but uncomfortable. Achy. And we get weaker. Slower. Other bad things happen too—we get confused easier, forget stuff more, can't transform as well. Master makes sure we feed regularly. Keeps us strong. Keeps us feeling good~"

  They tilted their heads in unison, curious.

  "We don't know how big sister does it though! How you feed. What it feels like for you. Master said—" They stopped abruptly.

  "Master said what?"

  The twins looked slightly guilty. "Um. Master asked us to feed together with big sister today. Watch how you do it. Remember everything. Report back to him later. He wants to know~"

  Through the bond: ?So this whole 'play' trip is also reconnaissance. Ealdred wants data on how you feed. Your methods. Your capabilities.?

  "Makes sense. He's invested in training me. Of course he'd want to understand how I actually function. Professional thoroughness."

  ?You're remarkably okay with being studied.? Spy questioned.

  ?Better him than the Empire or Church. At least his motives are clear—train maids, understand specimens, collect data. I can work with that.? Null agreed.

  The twins suddenly pulled out their map again. Spread it on the sand. Magical markers glowing across the surface, updating in real-time.

  "Feeding grounds! Master marked all the okay places and not-okay places. See~?"

  Null looked at the map. Territories marked with different colors. Labels and city names written in script she couldn't read—her language learning had only covered numbers and the alphabet so far. Everything else was still incomprehensible.

  "Is there anything marked for Cardinal Vescari? His territory nearby?"

  The twins' ears perked up. They studied the map, searching for the name.

  "Vescari... Vescari..." They traced their fingers across labels. "Oh! Here! This whole area! Cardinal Vescari's domain~"

  They pointed excitedly to a marked territory, then traced the borders with small fingers. Showed specific locations—large city markers, smaller settlement indicators, military post symbols.

  "This big city—his main residence. These smaller ones—important centers. These marks—military posts. Master made very detailed map for this territory. We use it lots~"

  "Why big sister know his name~?"

  "He was very rude to my master. Threatened him. Made explicit promises about torture and pain. I wanted to kill him then, but couldn't. Too public. Too many witnesses. Too many complications."

  The twins' expressions shifted dramatically. Shock. Horror. Genuine distress.

  "RUDE TO MASTER?! That's—that's the WORST crime! Being rude to master is terrible! Unforgivable! This cardinal is bad! Very bad~!"

  Their outrage was completely sincere. In their worldview, being disrespectful to someone's master was apparently the ultimate transgression.

  "We should punish him! Make him sorry! Big sister, we help~!"

  "I like that idea."

  The twins bounced excitedly. "New game! Better game! Who destroys more in rude cardinal's territory! We compete~!"

  One of them pulled out a small device—crystalline, with glowing runes. Some kind of magical timer.

  "We use this! Master said we should never spend more than this much time feeding in one place. Too much time = too much attention = problems. So we play until timer runs out. Whoever destroys more wins~!"

  "How long does it run?"

  "Enough time! You'll see~"

  Not a specific answer, but Null didn't press. The twins operated on "Master said so" logic. Precise durations probably weren't part of their understanding.

  "This cardinal's territory. It's not massive?"

  "Not massive. Medium territory for Church noble. But well-defended. Lots of paladins. Lots of holy magic. That's why it's fun—challenging~"

  The twins grinned wider. "If we both go full rampage mode... only rubble left when we finish! That's the fun part~!"

  Through the bond: ?They're planning to level an entire noble's domain. As a game. With a timer.?

  "And I'm absolutely participating. Vescari threatened Void. This is payback." Null said.

  ?Also probably going to cause massive political incidents.? Spy questioned.

  ?Don't care. He earned this.? Null shrugged it off.

  "We'll need disguises," Null projected. "You said Master makes you wear masks?"

  "Yes! We have items" Both twins pulled identical objects from their uniforms. Small medallions that pulsed with concealment magic. "These hide how we look and feel. Make us seem like different monsters. Does big sister have some too?"

  Null checked her item box mentally. Various disguise items. Illusion trinkets. Appearance-altering equipment. Collectibles she'd accumulated that were apparently functional magical artifacts here.

  "I have options."

  "Ooh! Big sister has lots of things! That's so cool! We can loan you extras if you need~" The twins were genuinely offering, helpful and generous.

  "I should be fine with what I have. But thank you."

  "Okay! If big sister needs, just ask! We help~"

  "Good. We all wear masks. Go in monster forms. Feed and destroy. Church people see monsters attacking, but not WHO. Can't prove it was us. Master stays safe~"

  "And we stay safe."

  "Yes! Everyone wins! Except cardinal. He loses everything~"

  The twins were grinning now. Truly excited. This wasn't just feeding. This was vengeance. Righteous punishment for the crime of being rude to someone's master.

  In their simple worldview, it was perfectly justified.

  Null found herself agreeing.

  "Let's do it. Show me the route. Explain the territory. Then we go play your new game."

  The twins cheered in unison. "Big sister is best~!"

  They gathered around the map, planning their approach. The twins explaining what they knew about Vescari's domain. The defenses. The population centers. The likely resistance.

  All delivered in that cheerful, childish emotional projection.

  Like planning a massacre was just another fun activity. Another game to play.

  And Null, feeling the anticipation building in her own chest, realized she was thinking exactly the same way.

  When did casual destruction become entertainment for me?

  The thought passed quickly. Irrelevant. She'd changed. This world had changed her. And right now, she had the opportunity to punish someone who'd threatened Void while simultaneously helping new friends and gathering information for Ealdred.

  Multitasking. Efficient.

  "Ready when you are."

  The twins activated their disguise items. Magic rippled across them, altering their appearance. Making them seem like different creatures entirely.

  Null selected her own disguise from her inventory. Something that would mask her eldritch nature while still allowing full combat capability.

  The concealment settled over her like a second skin.

  "Let's go."

  And together, the three monsters set off toward Cardinal Vescari's domain.

  To play their new game.

  To see who could destroy more before the timer ran out.