HOSTAGE

"Wawawawa—!" Felis held an ice pack to her head as Ivan comforted her from the side. Though the act itself was meaningless as her abdomen had been impaled and not her head in any way. In fact, because of her regenerative abilities and abundance of energy, she recovered in almost no time. Still, she liked to emphasize that despite having not a single scratch on her, the pain was a real feeling.

However what had truly amazed Ivan was her not admonishing Canis at all for the fact… not that he intended to either.

SPLAH!

The ice pack hitting the floor made for an uncomfortable sound, but in the end, it succeeded in grabbing the attention of Canis, who had been blankly staring off into space.

"Hey, little sis… Firstly, I would like to apologize!" Felis' back created a perfect 90-degree angle, recreating the scene she saw when Ivan had to end up apologizing to Ari for the turtle having eaten the garden she had painstakingly made.

She knew this gesture would have no meaning to this being who was less than a week old, however, she felt it needed to be said anyways.

"It was totally uncool of me to do what I did during the fight! This is why I want to apologize, I want to apologize for breaking your trust in what you believed to be a fair battle. I should have respected your feelings more— no, I should have respected you more…"

Silence permeated the air as both Yue and Ivan left the situation up to the hands of these siblings, as of now this was their dispute.

"Forgiven….."

While those words were very faint, they were audible to those with enhanced hearing like Ivan and Felis herself. The flopped-over ears on Felis' head perked up as her tail began moving erratically. Without a moment of hesitation, she lunged over at Canis, locking her into a hug as she nuzzled her cheeks with hers.

"Awww~ There's no need to be shy! Your big sis will always love you! Hey hey, let's have a rematch when you get stronger! This time I won't be giving you an advantage, alright? So you better prepare yourself~"

The constant physical affection may have annoyed Canis, but in the end, she only released a slight sigh before giving up. Her eyebrows twitched as she spotted the sly smile Ivan had adorned on his face from the sidelines.

To Ivan, this was a positive experience, and from what he could tell Canis learned to open up a little. Her sigh seemed like an example of that as the Canis before never showed anything other than stoicism.

"Well, what do you say, Yue? This is quite the moving bond between two sisters, right?"

"...Mhm, I can almost forget Felis getting a fist impaled straight through her body…" As always Yue wasn't quite elegant with her wording. And now that Ivan thought about it too of course their relationship wouldn't be normal, they were two beings that should have been impossible to exist.

Then again that was probably a good thing too, as their reconciliation might have not been so smooth otherwise. Ivan clapped his hands as he attracted the attention of the other sister who had been busy cuddling this whole time.

"Alright, now that we're done here, how about we head upstairs to eat the dinner our resident maid has made for us~?" With a hop and a skip, Ivan left the room. Followed by an exasperated Yue who had hoped he would take his time.

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*STEP STEP STEP*

The lady with swarthy red skin and fiery red hair lifted her head from her knees as she stared through the glass wall that stood in front of her. As dark as it was in this basement she knew on the other side was a staircase that led to the outside world.

How many days has it been since she woke up here? Was it a week? Was it several weeks? Hell, it could've been a month for all she knew… Time and time again the only thing that changed in this scenery of hers would be the appearance of THAT man who had come down here to scorn her from time to time.

His voice was sweet, his actions undiscerning, if not for the mask he wore on his face she would have guessed him to be some boy who had wandered down here by sheer accident. There was nothing remnant about the man who had utterly destroyed her and what she believed to be an unbeatable force.

"Good evening, Cattleya~! It's been a while since we last talked aye… Maaa~ Today it's a beautiful day outside! That turtle you 'gave me' finally understood that it shouldn't eat anything from my partner's garden. Phew~ A good thing too, she was starting to threaten me about turning it into soup!"

"...."

The locket Cattley had been carrying around had unexpectedly exposed her identity, as the words inscribed into it were her and her lover's names. As an otherworlder Ivan had been gifted the skill to understand other languages with ease, so discerning names on a locket was no hassle for him.

It was a gamble to determine whose name was whose but after insulting both of them it seemed the name 'Mikhail' elicited the most negative emotions.

"It's been so fun watching my daughter's development! Oh no, not the one you saw down in the dungeon. I'm talking about a new one. She's surprisingly strong y'know! She even managed to turn the tide against my eldest daughter, sure the eldest was going easy on her but the feat was impressive nonetheless."

"...."

"Maaa~ I'm sure that even if she went up against you and that 'unbeatable' team of yours she'd come out on top without breaking a sweat. Oh yeah, that lover of yours. Hm, what was his name again~? Was it Mitchel, Michael, Miquella, or was it—"

"..... Mikhail….." She voiced out with a bit of agitation in her voice.

"Hmm~ That sounds about right! When did you say he'd come and kill us all again? You see, while my daughters have significant strength they need a push to get headed in the right direction. That guy of yours sounds like just the right road bump for them to go up against! Of course, I'd like to take care of him myself but they deserve the chance to have fun as well, right?"

"....."

For the first time since this meeting, Cattleya lifted her head to lock eyes with Ivan. Whether it be the walls, ceiling, or floor, no matter how much she wailed on them they showed no signs of falling. The same went for the pane of glass that separated the two. But despite all that, what she wanted to do the most right now was beat the smug attitude out of that voice.

"Now that I finally got your attention, let us begin!"

A wooden chair appeared out of thin air, Ivan faced it away from Cattleya's cell before straddling it to face her. He put his left arm on the backrest before resting his chin on his knuckles. Everything he said before this could be construed as his foreplay.

"No matter where I search or who I ask I can't find any info on these monsters you brought to face the heroes down in the dungeon. At first, I waved it off as beasts exclusive to the demon region, however recently I've begun to doubt that. No way in hell would beasts as strong as they allow themselves to be under the orders of a weakling like you. Even if they wandered the demon region the kingdom or holy church would have documents of its existence at the very least, but my friend on the other side insisted that no such document existed."

Now that he had someone who knew he hadn't died on the other side, Ivan had no reservations about asking Hajime to act as his spy in the Holy Church's fortress.

"In fact, this whole war is on the brink of launching because you demons found out how to tame monsters, the question is how. While you could have developed a mage with a particular class or concoct elixirs capable of controlling them it all just seems too unreliable if you desire to go to war with all of humanity. You guys have attained the unattainable."

A glint of pride shone through Cattleya's eyes. Ivan sneered beneath his mask seeing that.

"So which of the heroes betrayed us? I doubt you godless bastards are capable of anything other than stealing people's work and calling it your own. Honestly, it was foolish of me to even think you would be strong enough to do things yourselves. You guys must've been bluffing about the whole monster taming thing to buy time while you ran away with your tail between your legs, and that's when the heroes were summoned. A bunch of naive children ripe for the picking, at first you must've been worried about their appearance but after thinking how to use them you've found yourselves a pair of balls!"

The accusation caused Cattleya's face to scrunch up, her eyes that were once full of pride now shined with fury. The man in front of her was insulting the sacrifices of the many comrades and brethren that laid their life on the line for their country. Insulting her lover, claiming him to be a coward. And finally, the greatest crime in her eyes, was him discrediting the work of their grand commander, Freid Bagwa.

"H-How dare you, you mongrel! What the hell do you know of our struggles! You dare call us cowards, the strongest race!? It was all of our work that made us the strongest! If not for the efforts of commander Freid we wouldn't have that right! He's the only person to have conquered a dungeon so don't forget it!"

There, that was the confession Ivan needed. Their target was someone capable of conquering dungeons. However, something else to infer was that this 'Freid' was the only person to attain ancient magic. The question was why didn't Freid lead his fellow demons to conquer the dungeon? The likely answer was that he did, but in the end, it was a dungeon that emphasized the strength of a person.

As an example, it would be easy for Ivan to lead his group, or any group for that matter, to the bottom of Miledi's dungeon. Ignoring that Miledi had the privilege to decide who obtained her magic, anyone that Ivan would have led to the end would be likely to learn it.

But the dungeon that Freid conquered didn't allow that in any capacity. It was likely the team he led into it was wiped out to the point that only he, the sole conqueror, remained.

The only sensible thing for this Freid to do now if he truly wished for the salvation of his race was to find a dungeon that would be suitable for his people to conquer. Ivan stood up from the chair before it disappeared out of thin air, then he turned his back, ignoring the screams of the demon girl who had attempted to retract her statements.

CLANK!

Darkness settled back into the room as the metal door that separated the cells from the surface slammed shut and locked.

The only thing left on Ivan's mind was to stop this Freid before he could conquer another dungeon.

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Phew, glad I could make it one time to get this chapter out there. I woke up today ready to start writing just to wake up to my internet service being down. After fiddling with my modem and router I was still stuck with no internet. So with no other options, I called my ISP. Turns out they were doing some scheduled maintenance thing they didn't tell anyone about. So until it was fixed I just wrote using mobile, honestly wasn't as bad as I though it would be. A lot of typos but that's about it.

In any case, everything's good now! Sorry for the ranting again~ I want to thank you all for taking the time to read my work! I'll be responding to any of your comments so go ahead and go crazy down there. But until then, thanks for reading, and have a great evening~!

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