BXBX NOVEL Chapter 385: Big Boss
Chapter 385: Big Boss
It was the next morning, and Kat woke up with Kamiko still in her arms. She was almost as cuddly as Sylvie, and it was a pleasant way to start the morning. Kat then tried to send off some messages to her Accomplices, but was told by the system that she couldn\'t while on punishment duty but they would be informed of this fact and that she\'d tried.
Kat didn\'t spend too long focused on that though, she instead turned her mind to the fact that she actually slept. Not just meditated, but properly slept. She wasn\'t exactly sure what to do with that information. Meditation seemed to be able to replace sleep without much trouble, and she was unsure if this was a good thing or not.
Before an answer could be reached, Kamiko had partially awoken, and decided that Kat\'s shoulder was much too comfortable to leave. Desperately trying to snuggle back into the comfort Kat provided… sadly her plan was interrupted when her horns started to dig into Kat\'s shoulder.
In response, Kat had been forced to circulate some demonic energy to prevent herself from getting injured, but the sudden stirring of energy was apparently enough to wake Kamiko up more fully. *She can feel that? I didn\'t realise that demonic energy was a thing you could sense?*
What Kat didn\'t know, was that even her ability to faintly see demonic energy leaking out of people wasn\'t normal. Kamiko didn\'t realise it either, as her entire family had the ability, but it wasn\'t exactly common amongst the full demonic population. This is simply one of those questions that Kat would never ask, as it just seemed obvious.
When Kamiko finished waking up, she gave Kat a quick hug before dragging her out of the room so they could start arranging breakfast. Kat had stood next to the pole confused for a second after Kamiko had dragged her there… until it launched them both straight up. Both managed the trip well, Kamiko through practice and Kat because she had wings to help.
The house was quiet as they quickly ate breakfast, and shared some light conversation that didn\'t really have an impact on either of them, before the system contacted them to inform them the next stage of their punishment would happen in five minutes.
Kamiko had jumped back downstairs and put her pyjamas away, while Kat followed along, mostly so that they would be teleported together. When they\'d finished running around, they grabbed each other\'s hands and a portal opened below them.
Lights flashed before Kat for a brief second before she found herself in a medium sized room. The floor was covered in circles of various sizes, from the largest in the centre that was easily twenty metres in diameter, to the smallest in the corners that were about the size of Kat\'s thumb.
The door swung open and a loud voice called out. "Is that my punishment workers? Come through the door, and keep going till you reach the end. Just open the big door you run into"
Kat felt a little confused by the voice, but Kamiko was on top of things, and pulled Kat along. Out of the teleportation room for the building. The corridor was made up of wooden slats and had a number of doors, but Kat didn\'t really take the time to take them all in. She did notice that each door had a unique design carved onto them, with some standouts being one with a sword, another with a dragon, and a third that had a waterfall.
Seeing these unique designs, Kat was somewhat prepared for the final doors, but not completely. They were a set of large double doors where the others had all been singular. The door handles seemed to be miniature dragons, with ruby eyes that seemed to follow Kat\'s eyes wherever she looked.
The rest of the door featured two skulls spewing gold from their mouths while gemstones occasionally fell from their eyes. She didn\'t need to interpret this, as the picture was actively flowing, albeit at a sedate pace. *Well, if I didn\'t know this was the Greed faction, I sure as heck do now.*
Kamiko finished dragging Kat to the door… but once they\'d both arrived it seemed that Kamiko had used up her courage already, as she looked at the door like it was about to turn and bite her. Kat pretended not to notice and walked up to the door, rapping her hand against the flowing gold, which clinked, and moved away from her hand when she did so.
"Open!" said the voice. Now that she was closer Kat could hear more of it. The voice was strangely double layered, both like the bass singer in a choir and like someone who smoked heavily at the same time, both voices interplaying with each other to produce something both uncanny, and strangely endearing at the same time.
Kat didn\'t get as much time to dissect it as she wanted, because the doors flew open by themselves at the command, gold spilling out of the doors and clattering on the floor for a second before sinking into the floorboards. Kat found herself facing a small staircase. Leading Kamiko up it, Kat kept her face neutral as the entered the room, even though it was impressive.
The main feature, was of course, a large oak desk with the person they were presumably there to see behind it. The desk looked like it was made out of silvery coins that had been glued together. Some parts stuck out more than others and gave the illusion of more intricate designs even if the desks features were actually somewhat simple. The main thing that was notable though was its size, easily twice as long as Kat\'s wingspan and filled with paperwork on one side and what had to be a floating computer monitor on the other.
The rest of the office wall space was filled with a number of graphs that seemed to be moving in real time. They seemed to have little bits of detail that hinted at what they were for. One was a glass of water that slowly filled up despite being sideways, another was stacks of gold coins that increased and decreased through no pattern Kat could discern.
Finally, the big man himself, and overall, that was a very accurate statement. He wasn\'t quite the tallest demon Kat had seen, and the fact he was sitting down didn\'t do him many favours, but he still had a powerful presence, like at any moment he could glare at you and you\'d be melted.
His eyes were embossed gold coins, they didn\'t look like coins, they WERE coins, with a strange symbol Kat didn\'t recognise in the middle. It looked somewhat like the Eye of Horus, but the eye lacked the usually eyebrow, and instead had a clawed hand in its place. The whole coin shifted as the man looked around the room, not just the eye on the coin.
His face was awkward, and to Kat, looked more like someone had stuffed a plastic mask over another man\'s face and had a strange artificial feel to it. It was a round face, but was strangely sharp in what felt like the wrong places. The cheekbones practically shot out from his face, while his jaw was perfectly round. His forehead, instead of lines from worry, looked like it had a series of metal bars trying to escape his skin. His hair looked like somebody had glued an old black rug to the top of his head to complete the look.
When he saw the girls he smiled, it was accompanied by a feeling of reassurance, but Kat couldn\'t help but find it disturbing. The smile was too wide, and his face seemed to open up more than possible to reveal it, showing off four sets of teeth. These teeth were silver bars, not coated with silver but miniaturised silver ingots while his tongue looked to be made of brass and was thick and easily spotted amongst the rows of teeth and against the black cavernous look of what had to be his gums.
In his hand was a cigar, though Kat was certain it was a prop. He was tapping it rhythmically as he smiled and it fell down every time, but never got any shorter. Smoke seemed to billow from his nose as he smiled, and Kat was almost certain that wasn\'t how biology was supposed to work, but it really did complete his look somehow.
His clothes seemed to be taken straight from the industrial revolution. He had a black petticoat on with a white undershirt that strained to contain his large stomach. It looked more like a sack of coins attached to a head than a person, and while Kat would never learn it, her assumption was corrected, because when he moved you could hear the clinking of coins shifting around inside.
"Well now, it seems you\'re both on time. That\'s lovely. My name is Boss. I had another one, but you\'ll never hear it. I have a job for you both. Shouldn\'t be too deadly of course, but… I hear that one of you has Succubus regeneration correct?" asked Boss, in his strange double layered voice.