Chapter 192: Dress-Up Daemon
As Jin Fang reached to turn the handle to the mysterious door, she found to her surprise that it wasn’t locked…namely due to it flinging itself wide open the moment she touched it, catching her by surprise.
“Mother fu-!…huh.”
At this exact moment, Jin Fang felt she had a deeper understanding of Zhen Liu.
‘Did…did Zhen Liu develop a habit of cursing and muttering in annoyance due to visiting this place so often?,’ she thought to herself as she entered the mysterious room.
Prior to his “death”, Zhen Liu had always been the quiet, sweet, polite and mildly sad type of person. He had never been one to cuss and he had never been the most active sort, but that made sense to her due to his circumstances at the time.
‘Although, he does seem different now…’
When Zhen Liu first came back from the dead, Jin Fang was just overjoyed and happy that her beloved was back. However, once that initial burst of joy ended, she began to notice that Zhen Liu seemed…different. While this change could have been attributed to the arrow that had been lodged in his brain a few months back, Jin Fang couldn’t help but notice.
He was a lot more diligent with his training, either by himself or with the kaijin, which made some sense to her since he was catching up to his cousins. However, she had never seen some of the moves he practiced before now.
Whenever he practiced,it seemed like a weird mix of styles as opposed to a singular, cohesive one. Maybe that was a result of reading arts and formulas from all over the library, but she wasn’t entirely sure.
But the one thing that stood out to her as being different was his personality. It wasn’t so much that he became a new person, it was more like he was himself but with a something extra added on top of it.
He would occasionally make odd statements in a grumpy manner, as if annoyed by a situation, which…if this place was his main domicile for about a month, she could understand why.
He was a tad more dramatic and active than before, displaying a more somewhat manic energy at times, and had stopped sighing as of late.
On top of all that though, he had been a lot more…proactive in their relationship, taking her on more outings, being the one to initiate kisses instead of her and generally being more “lovey-dovey”. Not that she was complaining, it was just strange. Zhen Liu also had been attracting more and more women as of late, somehow, but that didn’t really bother her because, she was first.
At some point she planned to ask Zhen Liu about all of this, but for now, she had a room to explore.
“Granted, it would probably help if there was a torch or something in here. It’s just pitch black and-”
*THOOM-FWEEEE!*
“Gah! My eyes!,” Jin Fang cursed as she rubbed her eyes in pain. The room went from pitch darkness to sudden brightness, it’d be surprising if she wasn’t blinded by the sudden change. As the stars and color splotches from being flashbanged began to fade away, Jin Fang could finally see what exactly was behind this door…and now she had even more questions.
“What…what even is all this?”
The room before her was rather empty, save for two key features.
The first was a large circular platform that looked to be made of glass and an additional unknown material that caused it to glow. This platform was in the center of the room and served as the focal point.
The second feature, which appeared to be connected to the platform, was a multi-armed marionette construct with a variety of tools at the end of each arm. This doll stood out to Jin Fang, because it looked a lot like the one that would pop out of Zhen Liu occasionally when he would do his kaijin…things. That being said, it was a lot smaller.
Curiosity getting the better of her, Jin Fang walked towards the marionette, hoping to get a better look, and blissfully unaware of where her feet were stepping, to the point that she stepped onto the platform.
As she walked across the platform, it began to light up with a faint runes on the rim.
“Huh…looks like the mask on this marionette might be a little bit different…,” Jin Fang muttered as she reached a hand towards the marionette’s face. But the moment she was almost an inch away the marionette suddenly sprang to life.
|Dress-Up Daemon, activated. New user detected. Please standby for deep scan,| an artificially feminine voice announced out of nowhere. The marionette began to rotate around the platform, occasionally stopping to readjust it’s head and body to look at Jin Fang at different angles.
“What the fuck?!,” Jin Fang yelled in shock at yet another surprise stimuli and the sudden movement of the marionette. It was at this point she understood why Zhen Liu was so jumpy nowadays. She stumbled back a bit until she was dead center on the platform, and could now see the runes surrounding her.
“What kind of array is this?,” she wondered as she noted the pattern being nothing she’s seen before. As she looked at the array around her, the marionette suddenly stopped.
|Scan complete. Kaijin consort, recognized. Unlocking features…complete. Would the user like a new outfit?|
“New…what?”
As if to answer her question, various holographic images of Jin Fang dressed in all sorts of strange, familiar and altogether beautiful outfits appeared out of nowhere and began to hover around her. The sight of which dizzied and surprised Jin Fang even further.
|Repeating question: Would you like a new outfit? If you cannot make a decision, you can leave it to this daemon.|
Confused about the words being used, after the literal flow of shock after shock, Jin Fang just nodded and said, “Uh…s-sure.”
|Excellent. Beginning measurements and deciding outfit…now.|
The marionette began to rotate around the platform once more, only this time there were a lot more hands involved and a lot more poking and prodding, causing Jin Fang to exclaim in surprise.
“Hey! Watch where you are grabbing!”
“Wait, hey that’s my cloak!”
“Ah! That tickles.”
It should be noted that this room was definitely not sound proof, so a particular group of monstrous looking warriors were definitely beginning to hear this.
“What is this and why is it so short? What do you mean it’s called a ‘skirt’?!”
And they definitely heard that.
________________________________________________
Nepherage, Frosttusk and Hurricroak were all busy in their own little worlds, reading up on what a kapua was, the history of a long lost battle and sheet music, respectively, when the sound of a screaming young lady grabbed their attention.
“What was…that?,” Frosttusk asked, “it sounded like…a scream?”
“Huh?”
Nepherage and Hurricroak perked up their senses in order to figure out what their mammoth companion was talking about. Which is when they heard Jin Fang loudly ask what the hell a skirt was.
“I’m not sure, but it doesn’t sound like our lady is in trouble,” Nepherage observed.
“Nope,” Hurricroak agreed, “but it sounds like fun. Let’s go see what’s up!”
“Very well.”
“Alright…”
The three kaijin left their books behind on the table and proceeded to go and look for the source of the scream.
“So…we all heard her scream something about a skirt, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yup…”
“…so y’all think that was a kinky scream or…”
“We’ll find out when we get there.”
“Fair enough…my money’s on something kinky though.~”
