“So, what are we doing now?”

  We are back at the lobby and that’s why I ask this question to Miranda the moment the door closes behind us. Although I do have something to say and that is that, it was quiet, far too quiet for my liking and mind you that I do enjoy the silence but somehow, I was about to have an existential crisis because of that silence. The entire walk here she didn’t say a single word and to make it worse, it seemed that she was avoiding eye contact with me and as expected from someone like me, I have no clue why. Did I anger her somehow? Did I say or do something that I shouldn’t have done? I mean, yeah, I was a little too close to her but! That’s it… Maybe that’s the reason she’s mad at me? Welp, time to deal with the consequences of your actions. I guess, next time don’t do it.

  “You couldn’t unlock the door because it still is too soon.”

  “Too soon?”

  Now that got my curiosity way up there so much so that I say this with a curious tone of voice and somewhat surprised look on my face as I didn’t expect it. Though, that still didn’t answer me. I think? Too soon she says… I can vaguely understand what she means and if I’m correct then, I have to “watch” Kiana's story to be able to progress further. I’m not going to complain as I will be able to see Kiana again however, why did I “waste” my time back there if it still is too soon for me to progress further? Actually, now that I think about it, did she know of this? Or is she as clueless as I am? I can see The Void Queen not telling her anything about this but somehow that does not seem probable as it will introduce a massive “variable” on Miranda behaviour. What I mean is that she might do something she shouldn’t do because she is unaware of the status of the current situation. Think with me, imagine if she thought the device malfunctioned and because of it she opened the door herself? Then what? I would progress much further than I should, potentially causing problems in the meantime.

  “I think I can understand what you mean by that but, did you know that already?”

  “Yes of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be your guide:)”

  Why the hell did you flashed that way too cute but mischievous smile at me as you said this?

  Once again, I was overthinking everything but, what the hell! That was a massive waste of time! All that I went through in that hour… Well, I’m not tired or anything like that in fact, I’m fired up! Ready for the next battle per say however, I was there for a little longer than an hour and an hour inside of Kiana’s story is quite long. Although now that I’m thinking back to what I went through, I probably should send a message to Miss Pink Orb, telling her about this situation. I don’t want to leave her without a signal for too long especially since I have no clue how further I have to go with Kiana’s story and of course taking in account her personality into the equation. I can only guess her worry if I went silent for a day or so. She’s really that kind, isn’t she?

  “I see… So, in the end, you left me all alone on purpose. Would you mind telling me why? That seemed to be a massive waste of time.”

  “Hmm, it was so that we could see how you handle yourself in that type of situation.”

  She actually answered me but yet again, she did something that I did not expect. For some reason she brought her right index finger towards her silklike lips as she seemed to ponder if she should answer me or not but quickly removed it so that she could show me her decision or to be more correct, tell me. Her tone of voice, albeit cold, was for the normal side and the rest of her body language matches it meaning that she was honest. However, her answer ended up confusing me a little bit. What does she mean by “handle yourself in that type of situation”? Is it the fact that I was “alone” in this Bubble Universe? Is it for them to be sure of my strength? Both of them? Aren’t they underestimating me by quite a bit if that is the case? I’m missing information about their motives, yes, plural as I more than believe Miranda got these orders from The Void Queen rather than being her act independently. Hmm, knowing her personality she might want to know how I can handle myself in the Bubble Universe when I’m all alone, completely unaware of what I have to do. Yeah, that does seem to be the most probable answer after all, if I am supposed to save Kiana then, I should be ready to tread the danger all by myself without having a hand to guide me. Maybe Miranda is here just to prevent unforeseen situations from happening or maybe help me solve them instead of hand guiding me throughout my “quest”. But, unforeseen situations…

  How about the woman that slayed the Crystal Fortress?

  “I do have a random question though, are we the only ones here? Outside of me, you and The Void Queen that is.”

  “Yes, we are, why do you ask?”

  Hmm, from her reaction I doubt she knows about that woman. She seems confused, unsure to what I’m trying to get at as to her, my question makes no sense as otherwise she would know about said individual. Yep, now I’m in a dilemma, if she truly does not know about her then, should I tell her? From how they have the tendency to hide things from me, how should I act? As far as I can tell there is a good chance that that woman is part of something, maybe part of this universe itself? Tsk… I just don’t want that woman to interfere with Kiana or in this case to put her in danger. What should I do? I-I… I think I will stay quiet for now and see how it will go. Might be making a grave mistake but I don’t want to act on impulse, I think it might be worse as she might as well be an ally.

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  “No peculiar reason, I was just curious if I was going to meet someone else. You said that you have a sister so I thought I might meet her in the future.”

  “There is no need for you to meet her for now.”

  It seems I was able to easily throw her suspicion and curiosity towards the window as she quickly shuts down my “desire” to meet her sister. Anyway, after this we walked up to the chessboard, sitting on the chairs once there. Not much I can say after this point, I casually sat down and so did Miranda. We stared at each other for a few seconds until I started to feel sleepy, slowly falling towards the cold chessboard as my left cheek gently fell on top of it.

  ……..

  ……

  …

  “Sigh, it’s so stressful being with you…”

  The girl brings both of her slender hands towards her face, more so towards both of her cheeks while deviating her gaze downwards towards the chessboard. They gain a slight shade of red to them but that’s not the only thing that happens as the temperature in those areas increases by a few degrees causing this phenomenon. While it does not compare to before, her heart is still beating slightly faster than normal. Indeed, even though she did all of that to forget about the emotions she went through an hour or so ago, it failed miserably as the moment she met with my Hero, yet again, a new event happened and one that almost made her lose any type of control she had of her own self. The memories of such are slowly surfacing in her mind. Images of such memories are being created, ones that are vivid almost to the point they are indistinguishable from the realm ones. Ah, but as she was about to feel “weird” in a specific area of her body, with a desire to touch said area but a desire that has no logic whatsoever to it as she cannot understand why it’s even appearing, someone behind her crosses between universes and she does so in a quiet manner. At least, Miranda didn’t hear her coming nor sense her traverse between universes.

  “Oh? Is that so? Is he giving you that much trouble?”

  The voice came from behind Miranda however, it wasn’t necessarily right behind her in fact, she was able to notice some distance in the voice. Said voice is feminine, cold and sharp not only that, it seems to echo slightly although the reason for such might be from a different reason than the space they are in as it is big enough for such to happen. No, something else is creating this echo. Ah yes, while her voice was for the cold side, there was a little bit of teasing mixed with it and of course, her face expressed such teasing. There was a soft smile on her glossy lips as she spoke, her head was also slightly tilted to the sides as she expressed said teasing while also gently crossing her arms the very moment she began to speak. However, the rest of her body followed somewhat the same path but in a more arrogant way. Her hips go slightly to the opposite of her head while her feet do the opposite. One foot is in the same direction of where the head tilted to, while the other one stays in place.

  “Ah! M-My Empress! I-I didn’t mean like that…”

  Oh? She sure is panicking a little bit not only that, I can just about see that her cheeks are slightly red. Did he say something that made her feel embarrassed? Oh my, now that’s something that I would love to see happening. In fact, I’m already enjoying her reaction although I shouldn’t go too far. I still need to keep my composure as the “Empress”, not some school girl with her gossip and such. Sigh, I would prefer for her to simply call me by my name but it seems to be impossible for her. She simply does not want to stand in the same position as I, quite the opposite. It more than seems her personality is a mix of the dummy and the bigger dummy but there’s no point in thinking about this as neither are with me right now. Though… Maybe I can have a little bit of more fun?

  Step! Step!

  The girl never stood up when the Empress appeared and in reality, she seems reluctant to even face backwards towards her. Indeed, the girl is beyond confused to what she’s feeling, why is she feeling in such a way, why such thoughts are appearing on her mind, ones that she never had before but the worse of it, are the desires that she’s having a hard time to send them to the void or simply temporarily forget about them. Meanwhile, the Empress slowly walks up to the girl. Each of her footsteps are long and heavy and because of this, they echo quite easily and they do so by a few good moments. Though, the distance between them is not that great, meaning that, after a few short seconds of walking, the Empress is already next to the girl, eagerly waiting for an opportunity to keep going with her teasing.

  “You didn’t mean like that? Care to explain? Your cheeks do seem a little red though… Are you feeling sick?”

  Her voice is soft but strong enough to be able to be properly heard by the girl. The moment she asked the girl said question, it made her heart jump upwards violently, making it skip a single beat because of it however, when she made the remark close to the end then, it was when the world itself felt that it collapsed for brief moments. Indeed, the reason for such is quite simple as the girl’s red cheeks are merely a representation of what she’s feeling and that’s exactly why it felt to her that the world collapsed. It was as if she was caught red handed doing something that she shouldn’t be doing, a forbidden action or simply an action that someone like her shouldn’t be doing. Maybe even an immoral one or simply a degenerated one. Ah, a maiden that is far too green in the world, making her act in such a manner.

  “I’m feeling a little hot but… No, I’m fine. Ye-Yes, there was a problem some time ago and I had to take care of it.”

  “Hum, changing subjects, are we? But yes, I know that, I received your message loud and clear. I’m sorry that it took this long for me to come, however, that dummy needed my help.”

  I’m actually starting to believe that it was planned by those ants. The king of the ants of course, the other ones are simply far too stupid to come up with such an elaborated plan. While I was out, preventing several Shadows from entering the real world, a group of them decided to take my absence to invade this Bubble Universe. Not a bad plan as they intend to consume this universe to fuel The Seed of Destruction and if that happens, that thing will gain a tremendous amount of power. By having me in a completely different place it basically allows them to freely do what they did as in their non-existent mind, I’m the only one that can destroy their plans. Ha, a bunch of idiots, someone whose strength is in the S rank realm can already decimate more than 99% of them and yet, they are not a threat enough to be taken seriously.