Chapter 409: Ok. Explain this to Me
It was two hours before the day should have ended when Boss' voice came over the speaker. "If the pair of you could finish the current item and then come to my office with the items you want me to look over that would be ideal"
Kat gave a nod to Kamiko who stabbed Kat with the spear they'd picked up. The blade was made out of water that continually moved around a small centre. It managed to slice well enough, but compared to some of the stranger metals it was a little lacklustre.
After two days, Kamiko had stopped complaining about injuring Kat on the regular. She still winced and Kat would give her a hug after any particularly bad injuries, but that was the worst of it. Seeing the blade struggle to slice much further than Kat's skin until Kamiko gave it a good swing was annoying. Being drenched when that same swing shot water everywhere instead of cutting wasn't even a concern.
Kat just flared her fire around her freezing all the water and watching the ice slide off her body. She'd noticed that, while water did run off her easily, it could still manage to pull in areas because the water didn't just leave, it mostly relied on a lack of friction and gravity. Kamiko wrote up the final report as Kat put away the weapon and started to stack the boxes.
"You know. I'm a little surprised how pleasant this has been. Boss has been very polite with us." Said Kat.
Kamiko frowned. "I was required to injure you regularly to test what's mostly weapons and largely swords with standard magical abilities. Why do you think he's nice?"
Kat shrugged and said. "Well, he's been polite, as I said, he didn't have to do that considering we are being punished. On top of that, he could have just told us to do it without the amulet to help with the pain."
Kamiko sighed, not really understanding why her friend was so blasé about getting stabbed, until she remembered something her mother once mentioned about some Succubi. "Wait… you aren't a masochist are you?"
"I don't know what this is." Said Kat as she put away the next box.
"It means you… uh… get sexual pleasure from pain." Mumbled Kamiko.
Kat of course, easily held the whole thing and looked over at her friend with a raised eyebrow before saying. "No…? I mean no. Definitely not. I… are there really people who like that? Why would you enjoy pain?"
Kamiko, as much as she didn't want to admit it, was surprised at the look of confusion on Kat's face. As she studied her friend, a large part of her said this shouldn't be her job to explain. A smaller part said if she didn't who would. The larger part decided throwing her mother under the buss was a good idea. The smaller part chimed in, and was ignored, when it informed her Nira would love the chance. "I don't really understand it myself." Is what Kamiko said to avoid the question further.
*Hmm, even if I'm not a masochist… it does bring up the question of what I DO like.* Kat gave it a moment and nothing really came to her. *Welp, guess I can just continue to ignore it then. At least I know it isn't pain. That would be embarrassing. Hang on… are people at Wrath like that?*
Kat looked over her memories from that punishment and quickly reached the conclusion that no, they weren't. *Or at the very least most of them aren't, and certainly none of the people I fought. Though… I guess with the beards in the way it's hard to tell… no never mind. Let's just go with none of them.*
"So back to the question beforehand" said Kat bringing the previous ideas and shoving them in a box 'to never think about' "Why is Boss polite?"
Kamiko tilted her head from side to side as she walked over to help with the boxes. "Well, Lust figured out centuries ago that happy demons work better, and that happy customers always come back. Eventually Greed picked it up. Some of them really are nice, but a lot of them only care about the bottom line and just understand being a bit polite about things gets them a lot more respect. Especially when grudges can last centuries or longer. Envy and Pride make the biggest deal about things like that, but no faction except maybe Sloth really escapes it.
"Even medical. You do NOT want an angry patient, but an angry Doctor or Nurse is much much worse. Young demons get that beaten out of them quickly. Sometimes literally from what I've heard. Mum has told me some rather… extreme things others have done to apologise for their children or to ensure they won't do something like that again.
"And I mean, I do get it. Not many people are as good at healing as Mum, and it's not like people at that strength can be picky. If you don't have regen by then you get sort of…? a baseline? Small cuts and stuff can be shrugged off, but to damage you, you need to take attacks from even more powerful people and the… Intent? I believe it's called can linger."
"Is intent a concern for me?" asked Kat
"Intent" said Kamiko and Kat could really hear the capital letters. "Will make it harder for you to heal yes, but because you can regenerate you can just push more energy into the healing and infuse your own Intent into it to counter. Additionally, because you don't scar, you aren't on a time crunch to deal with it.
"In the very very rare event you do get scarred, you can push Intent and healing into the scar and remove it, but you'd have to have fucked up badly to get into a position where that's a concern."
"Why?" asked Kat putting the last of the boxes they were taking with them.
Kamiko sighed. "It's one of those things. Rank 5 is a big step and you have to be at or above that to infuse that sort of thing into attacks. It becomes automatic at Rank 6. As a Rank 2 demon you just won't deal with those kinds of people."
*My money's on Thyme being at least Rank 5 equivalent if not more. Damn, I mean, I have no idea how far away from his tree he was. I wonder how much power he could bring to bear if we were right next to it. That was something Lilly found out about Dryads. Assuming he is one…*
The teleporter activated at this point and they found themselves back in Boss' office. It was now twice the size it was before to easily accommodate the additional boxes. Kat looked around wildly, but Kamiko seemed to think this state of affairs was somewhat normal.
"So, what have you got for me?" said Boss with a puff of smoke.
"First off we have this," said Kamiko removing the remote from a pocket somewhere.
Boss examined the small black button turning it over a few times. "Well, what about this is strange to you? I assume the button does something?"
"It's the light switch for the warehouse, as far as we can tell." Responded Kamiko.
Boss frowned and bit down on her cigar. Turning to the screen on his desk he tapped at a holographic keyboard for a few seconds before bringing up the security feed for the warehouse. Pressing the button turned it dark. Boss eyes the corner of the screen which indicated the camera was still working.
"Very strange" grumbled Boss. "It seems that something strange has been done to the warehouse, or perhaps just this button. I know for a fact these cameras are infrared. They shouldn't care the lights are out…"
Kat jumped in as Boss trailed off. "We do know that lighting up demonic fire in the area pushes the darkness back, but I'm not sure how far it would extend if it was someone more powerful. For myself, even with more fire it's about…" Kat thought back to the measurements. "I'm going to say three metres."
Boss put down his cigar and tapped his hands rhythmically on the desk. Kat could hear the jingling of metal as the joints in his fingers danced. Boss clicked his tongue, or that was Kat's guess, it sounded more like a small cymbal going off in his mouth before he continued talking. "Thank you for bringing this to me. Even I'm not quite sure what's going on with this just yet. I'll have to investigate or send someone more qualified. You've done well. What else do you have for me?"
Kamiko smiled, seeming to have gotten over most of her fear of the man, even though it was clear she still wasn't the most comfortable in his presence. Still her smile seemed to help steady her as she opened up the box. "Well, the next thing we have are these flowers…
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