My Servant System

"Alright fine then, I'll bite. What exactly has you worried about this whole Staircase thing? That it might not be an exclusive, one way only sort of deal? Or that things might start changing now that that one being from above decided to come down here and say hi to us?"

Sprawling out comfortably on the furs, I held back a bit of a yawn as their warmth began to lap at my mind, which when combined with the sweet scent wafting off of the Arch Fiend and the sight of her spectacularly bouncy mountains made it rather difficult to not want to drift away.

A part of me - physically - was very much against the idea of falling asleep right now, but mentally I was a bit drained and exhausted so the idea of going unconscious for a few hours to let them pass by super quick was very appealing.

"Boring... Yes and no, to all points you raised. Obviously it is a bit worrisome if someone from above decides to take a vacation down here, but I imagine it is either completely impossible or something is keeping them away, be it an entity, a fear of something immaterial, or something as simple as the... mana quality or something like that.

Maybe they don't want to come down because the mana is so sparse and weak down here or something, but... it makes you think about what someone like that could do, no? If it takes someone at their apex here - or someone with the potential to reach that apex quickly enough - to bring them back around to 'watching' us, then who's to say that their weakest isn't stronger than our apex? And that they got tired of being weak so now they want to come play down here?"

"Understandable worries but also something that I think could be easily 'disproven' by the fact that we don't have a surplus of people at the apex running around. If someone was so weak up there and came down here roughly at the top of our possible strength, even if they were so terribly untalented they would still dominate a region.

Someone like that doesn't go unnoticed, and they definitely wouldn't want to be unnoticed. That also brings the idea of our world being so 'disgusting' to them that they don't want to come down here.

Or take the way the citizens of the Empire view the human territories around us; sure they could go there and likely be near the top of their respective fields because of their natural advantages and strengths, but do they really want to be there? What's the point? Everything's just... worse."

The Arch Fiend drifted around lazily for a few seconds, staring at me with a thoughtful expression and keeping quiet, though when she spoke I just groaned and grabbed at a pillow, covering my face with it and trying to shut her out.

"I didn't think you were capable of such complex thought... I suppose we learn new things every single day~!"

Her teasing me for the moment just made me want this to be over, but immediately afterwards the Arch Fiend drifted closer and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, like she was afraid someone might overhear her and throw her into a cell beneath the ground again.

"But what if that person was persecuted by someone above, or faced some sort of test that they couldn't pass? What if the shame pushed them to flee their wonderful world for somewhere else? Somewhere more accepting and 'backwater'?

What if... What if the Empress is from above, but she only came down here because a certain someone close to her - someone currently dealing with a 'curse' of sorts that was deemed unbreakable by everyone who'd ever seen it - wasn't able to continue surviving up above~? Tell me, am I just... thinking the wrong things~?"

~~~

Kat PoV

"Okay, no, there is absolutely NO way this forest is completely empty. I refuse to believe it."

We had been walking for quite a long time and yet we hadn't found anything at all; no markings, disturbed snow, brushed away needles or broken branches.

There was simply nothing in these woods that was alive besides the trees themselves, and that alone was... I will admit I was slightly terrified of that, more than I thought I would be.

I don't really know why exactly considering I was here with Draka - who I was making damn sure to keep in my line of sight - and that we were likely capable of dealing with whatever monsters or people might be in here, but... that was the fun thing about fears.

Sometimes they were irrational, and that just made them all the damn worse...

Draka apparently shared in that too since she just nodded silently while looking around, the Dragonkin clutching the staff she had brought out sometime ago to just help feel a little more safe, to feel prepared for whatever might happen.

My voice drifted through the forest without any issue, shattering the eery quiet and making my hairs stand on end a little as I inched a little closer to the Dragonkin; it wasn't dark but it wasn't that bright either, allowing shadows to pool around some of the trees and make seeing far practically impossible.

"Alright, I really... let's do this to help make sure we're together completely, yeah?"

Removing some sinew from my storage bracelet and quickly enchanting it with some basic magic, I tied it around my wrist and then around Draka's, connecting us with a 'rope' and allowing me to feel somewhat comfortable as I slowly began to turn around and look all around us.

"I don't really see anything at all, and there isn't much different about... anything."

"I don't really see anything at all, and-"

I whipped back around and found that the Dragonkin who had been clutching that staff was no longer there, the sinew rope I had used freshly severed and slowly becoming frozen as frost spread up from the clean cut.

My own voice had been reflected at me, and yet there was nothing at all where Draka had once been, leaving me incredibly confused and even more terrified as I tried to piece together what it might be; some kind of spell, maybe something like Moon Magic or something to create an illusion, perhaps we were under the effect of some kind of herb...

I didn't know, but I desperately needed to find out before I went a little more crazy... though considering I was now alone in an evergreen forest that was actually getting rather cold - even for me - and had no idea where to go or what to do... I suppose it was only a matter of time, hm~?