"Seriously of all the things you want me to look at, why her back?" Drew was well beyond curious what Lucifia had planned for him, but he's thinking that it's just a way to mess with him.
"Because there's no way she'll even let you look at her breasts?" Lucifia mockingly replied.
"You are just messing with me!" Andrew shouted while he and Lucifia are standing in front of the closed guestroom door.
"I'm not. There's something on the girl's back that's actually bothering me." Lucifia crossed her arms and leaned beside the door while staring at Drew. "It's a magic circle that I have no idea what it can do to a person."
Lucifia's sharp eyes that stared at Drew without any hint of her usual mocking air got him to take the situation seriously as well.
He lets out a sigh and started knocking at the door.
"Melissa are you decent?" Drew asked while looking at Lucifia who strangely looked away the moment they locked eyes with each other.
"I am decent!" Melissa replied inside the guestroom. "What do you think I-"
Whatever Melissa was going to say it didn't register to Drew. Maybe it's because he's had one too many drinks or he's tired and wants to rest but whichever the reason was it's about to be blown right out of him by the thundering sound of a gunshot.
The bullet had already embedded itself to the wall behind Drew before he started trembling.
Lucifia's head peeks in and the she-devil sees Melissa buck-naked while holding her red cloak to cover herself after firing the shot.
"Why!?" Drew screamed with his body still trembling from the near-death experience. "You told me you were dressed!"
"No! You told me if I was decent! I AM! You on the other hand!" Melissa maliciously reloads her rifle, struggling with it because she's having to load while not having her cloak fall off and give Andrew another peek at her naked body.
Andrew started waving his arms around trying to get Melissa to calm down, and then he suddenly came up with a great idea.
"Okay fine, I saw you naked, so how about this? I'll get naked too!" Before Drew could even grab his shirt, another shot was fired.
Unfortunately, it missed its target again.
The two had a bit of a shouting match, with Drew calling Melissa crazy and Melissa telling him he's drunk. The domestic dispute in the guestroom was interrupted momentarily by Basil who came up to check what the gunshots were about only to get told to beat it by all three. The squire runs down the stairs, shouting that he's had enough with the bullying, and on his way down he passes Aranea who's walking up the stairs to also check on the three.
Aranea peeks her head out of the door from the other side and she sees Drew talking to Melissa. She could see him having a hard time trying to explain that he didn't mean to and that he's here because Lucifia asked him to.
"C, -Can I ask what���s going on?" Aranea said turning her attention to Lucifia who was disinterested with her by the half-glance Lucifia gave.
"I just asked An-dunce to feel Melissa's back -Why, jealous~?" Lucifia walked up to Aranea.
Wearing a fake smile, Lucifia looks down on the timid witch with her glowing blue eyes that brought out the darkness in the hallway and the blackness of her cross-shaped pupils.
Lucifia didn't like the witch's inborn slyness that was tucked under her quiet personality.
It made her think what else is Aranea hiding about herself.
A sound of pebbles rattling softly echoed in the dark hallway, and to Aranea's fear it turned out to be Lucifia's tail grabbing the door by its knob and closing it.
It shuts out the light that poured out from the guestroom making the already dim hallway darker.
Only the moonlight from the window at the end of the hallway brought any kind of glow to the darkness that was cast over Lucifia and Aranea, but even that served to only frighten her as the glow in Lucifia's eyes resembled the moonlight.
Aranea's breath staggered as her entire body ran cold with dread. She clasped her hands together to gather warmth in them because she felt as though her fingertips were coated in ice.
"You must be frustrated right?" Lucifia asked the trembling Aranea.
"Oi! Is that how you're supposed to treat the person who's feeding you!? Just how ungrateful are you demons?!" Finny spoke out to protect Aranea.
"Hoh? Is this your familiar? And I was wondering what it was. You couldn't even get an animal to be your pet, just how bad are you at socializing~?" Lucifia snickered.
"Why I ought to! Gah!? -Aranea what're you doing!?" Finny asked why Aranea had grabbed his legs to stop him from lunging at Lucifia.
Aranea doesn't say a word. With her head down she simply shook her head as a reply.
With a large smug Lucifia continued to prod on Aranea, her maliciousness growing with every passing second.
Lucifia then kept Aranea in place by putting her hand against the wall the timid girl's pressed against. In doing so the stark difference in their height was made clear.
"Let me get back to what I was saying. You're frustrated that I got in your way."
"You're one to assume aren't you!? What gives you the authority to speak for Aranea's feelings, hah!?" Finny blurted out in anger towards the demon.
A grimace replaces Lucifia's smug when the hat spook out again. She found it amusing at first but hearing it a second time caused her to use her tail to stab and pin Finny to the ceiling.
"F, -Finny!" Yelped Aranea as soon as she felt her grasp on Finny slip.
"You're one to talk, now sit tight there. Well, are you going to answer my question now?"
"I don't understand what you're trying to say so please stop!" begged Aranea.
Similar to how she first felt when meeting Drew, Aranea feared that she might lose the only person who she's comfortable opening up to.
She thinks that she's once again stepped out of line and is being punished for it. 'Was it wrong for me to want things? Is it wrong for me to want to go outside and try to be independent, is it wrong for me to have feelings for others?' She wondered while biting her lip out of the frustration that Lucifia called her out on.
Tears welled in the corner of Aranea's eyes and they threatened to trickle down her face. To Lucifia's surprise, the timid witch sucked it up with a sniffle and looked up at her confidently, or at least as composed as the witch could be at that moment.
"I, -I am upset! A lot has happened today for me, and just when I thought I made a new friend-" Aranea suddenly took a deep breath to prepare herself for her first rant "-I ended up making an enemy out of you for having feelings over a guy that you also like, and it frustrates me that I have no way to compete against you!"
An unfamiliar loudness echoed in the hallway that shocked not just Finny and Lucifia but also Aranea herself.
Covering her mouth with both hands the blushing timid witch panicked as she fully regrets pouring out all of her raw and bottled up emotions to Lucifia.
Lucifia, still stunned, took a moment to register everything Aranea said, and when it did finally process her face turned just as red as Aranea's.
She wanted to say something back to Aranea, anything that would at least contradict the idea of her having feelings for Drew that at this point finally came to light.
But any words that she could think up got caught in her throat so the two girls by the hallway were left staring at each other silently.
They were hoping that divine providence would somehow act to help them make Drew deaf to the argument they just had.
…
"Should we do something?" Turning her head to look behind, Melissa asked Drew what they should do with the mess stirring in the hallway outside the guestroom.
The thin walls of the house made it easy to hear anyone from the hallways and Melissa knows that it's Lucifia and Aranea quarreling with one another.
Because the two strangely fell silent that Melissa got concerned which prompt to ask if Drew should meddle in.
"Sounds domestic. Let's leave them to one another."
"What if they break out into a fight?" Melissa entertained the thought.
"Then my bet is on Lucifia," Drew replied with a smirk on his face.
"Please take this seriously."
"I am. That's why I'm not worrying about them. I don't think Lucifia's the type of antagonistic person she makes herself up to be. I actually think she's quite kind."
It's not as though Andrew is blindly trusting Lucifia, but something in him is rejecting the idea of seeing her as just plain malicious.
It could be because he wanted to avoid making the same mistake as he did with Melissa or maybe it's shaping up to be something more.
He's seen that under Lucifia's layer of malice there is genuine concern for all living things. It was in Drew's decision to give her a second chance.
Whether he comes to regret that choice has yet to come.
Drew started drawing the half-erased magic circle on Melissa's back on a piece of parchment.
After Drew finished drawing the broken circle, he begins to mirror it to give it the other half, and to finish he fills in the gaps himself to join the two halves.
Drew furrowed his brow upon finishing. To his dismay, he hasn't the faintest clue what the complete magic circle is, much less what it does.
It was far too archaic for him to read.
He dreads the idea of activating it as the anonymity of what phenomena it would cause scares him.
It does beg the question that this archaic magic circle could be something that existed in the Age of Gods.
Not wanting to feed his worries he decided to draw something around the circle which smoothed the creases on his brow and made him smile.
"H, -How long is it going to take?" Melissa spoke up, getting tired of sitting on the bed with her back open to Drew.
The anti-mage turned artist was actually drawing Melissa's back to get his attention away from the magic circle while not completely ignoring it.
"I'm already done, take a look for yourself!" Drew proudly showed off his sketch of Melissa's back that really stressed the curves of her butt.
The crimson witch stared at the detailed portrait of her ass. She turned to Drew with a straight face and a coy smile, and on the complete opposite, Drew has an earnest beaming look of joy on his face that showed how proud he was of his handiwork.
"Drew."
"Yes?"
Melissa slaps Drew but at least he got a 5 out of 10 from her.
…
Sobered-up after the slap, Drew left the room with the parchment in-hand to give it to Lucifia. Hoping that he'll see her waiting for him in the hallway he's surprised to see neither Lucifia nor Aranea are there.
Drew walked down the flight of stairs and passing by the doorless entrance to the kitchen he sees in the corner of his peripheral vision Lucifia and Aranea sitting next to each other in front of the dining table.
With straight looks on them, they shared a casserole of fresh Shepard's pie while pretending that they don't see Andrew standing at the entrance.
Andrew's brow twitches.
He doesn't know what's more offensive, the fact that they're ignoring him or that they're selfishly stuffing their mouths full with Shepard's pie.
Rather than ignoring the two of them as they so heavily wanted, Andrew turned to look at them and as soon as he did the silence was broken by Lucifia and Aranea snorting.
That caused a vein to pop on Drew's temple as he grits his teeth.
"I'm going outside! I hope you two keep eating until your stomach explodes!" He snapped at the two of them before stomping his way to the door.
So anyways he leaves just as Lucifia and Aranea burst out laughing at the red handprint on his face. 5 out of 10.
As Andrew exits through the front door and walked out of the porch of the house, he glanced at the picnic table and he sees Hagurd having a joyful chat with Basil who has started drinking with the middle-aged man. Bullying, that'll do it.
The grinning Hagurd waved Drew to come over and join the two of them but he meekly waved back at the old-man, smiled at him, and turned his offer down.
It's not that he didn't want to have another drink with Hagurd but something about tonight is luring Drew into town to have a stroll with himself.
He soon comes to regret that decision of his as he walks the cold dark streets of Aspen. He half-expected there to be an increase in patrol but as he continued to walk, he doesn't come across another soul.
When a light fog suddenly rolled and blanketed the streets in a white haze, Drew felt that it was a sign for him to head back, but something kept him from doing something so simple.
His instincts suddenly flared up, something he's already experienced beforehand when he was ambushed by a feral Lucifia.
This time however the feeling was completely clear to Drew. It's his fear shouting at him to go into fight or flight.
Andrew scanned the area around him as calm as he could, but the slightest motion he picked up caused his eyes to jerk in the direction of the movement.
Something in him is laughing at his loose attempt of putting up a composed exterior.
Drew's senses were amplified to the realms of the extreme as they longed for any kind of clear stimulus.
His eyes missed light that they searched for it through the white void, his ears wanted to listen to the chirping insects that were not there, he craved the taste and smell of something that wasn't the cold air around him, and he wanted to hold someone to calm his pounding heart.
The crinkle of a parchment caused Drew to flinch, only to realize that it was his own hand clenching on the parchment he held.
Holding the piece of paper up to look at the drawing he was so proud of, Drew managed to compose himself again but his high-strung senses were still there. They could pick up the slightest thing that could provoke him.
And as Drew turns around to head back home to talk to Lucifia and show her the parchment, he hears the sound of what he hopes to be a pig being skinned.
The wet sound of dripping echoed and leaves Drew in a cold sweat as he slowly turns back to where the noise is coming from. In anticipation, he hears himself swallow his gob of spit.
His heart falls off from his chest.
Andrew could see a dark silhouette approaching him and its drenched in the scent of blood so thick that his eyes could imagine the fog around the figure becoming bloodstained.
It suddenly held its arm out to show Drew its collection of skins that had the same magic circle that Melissa has. Some of the patches were darker than others indicating decay.
But the one that Drew is being shown is fresh as it still dripped with blood.
"Looking for these? Too bad, I got to them first~" said the silhouette in an ecstatic male voice while it continued to dangle the pieces of skin at Drew.
It was taunting Drew that he had more than him.
"What're you on about, what're those circles for anyway!?" Drawing his sword, he prepares to confront the creature before him.
The silhouette stopped flaunting his collection and slumped as though he's disappointed.
"You aren't worth my time," he replied to Drew while also unsheathing his blade from the scabbard that was on his waist.
"How about you find out yourself!" Andrew charges towards the silhouette with his sword cutting through the fog. He felt that his sprint could raze the ground he's running on.
With both arms, he holds his sword and leaps forward. His torso twists to the right side as he prepares to swing at the man. His powerful sword swing pulls a bit of the fog with it as it cuts the mystery man's head cleanly.
"Nothing!?" Drew blurted out in shock as he lands back on his feet. He realized that the only thing he cut was the air and that the man had disappeared.
Looking down, Drew sees a trail of blood left by that man's fresh kill.
"You aren't getting away."