Chapter 293: I Hit Once and She Came.

...Did I maybe kill this guy?

But that should have been impossible. I mean, my cloak had already slowed us down considerably before we hit the ground and the remaining distance wasn’t enough to harm us significantly.

I had only used him as a cushion to avoid a few bruises... and getting dust on my clothes.

So, I couldn’t understand how that might have killed him.

I felt bad about it for barely a second before shrugging the thought away. I mean, he would have died with those chickens anyway and technically, our combined weight only increased because he tagged along.

If he hadn’t been there with us, I was sure that Arza and I probably would have landed much more smoothly than we did now.

Yeah.

That made sense.

Though it was kind of a bummer that we had lost our guide before we entered the world he was supposed to guide us through.

But oh well, at least he showed me the crack I was supposed to enter.

I was just about to drag Arza toward the crack that the guy had pointed out from the sky when something in the air shifted.

"Haaaaah..."

A loud breathing sound came from behind me as I immediately turned around, only to see that damned panda who seemed dead a moment ago rising up from the ground in unnatural ways.

His tongue had somehow returned to his mouth but something about him was weird.

His eyes felt colder and sharper as if that somewhat pathetic look he had carried until now had been some kind of mask meant to fool us.

But before I could even say something, right before my eyes, his body began to change.

"What the...?"

The thick fur covering his body rapidly receded into his skin before smooth pale skin started to emerge underneath it as his large body started shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye.

I looked at him with amusement and wariness and as the transformation continued, his limbs became slimmer and his body narrow. Hell, even that ridiculous belly vanished completely as if it was an illusion.

Though vanished probably wasn’t the right word because the mass was still there, if simply shifted upward turning his chest into a distinctly feminine figure.

Only the two small black panda-like ears on top of his head remained the same as silky hair suddenly started growing out around them, cascading down his back split in black and white.

Then his face changed.

The round panda features vanished, replaced by a refined humanoid face as a pair of brilliant blue eyes slowly opened.

Within only a few minutes, the transformation was complete.

Standing where the fat mess of a panda had been just moments ago was now a humanoid woman with panda-like ears.

A rather beautiful one at that.

Her pale body possessed refined curves and mature charms that completely contradicted the chubby panda I had been using as a landing cushion just a moment ago.

I stared at her as she stared back at me before two daggers suddenly appeared within her hands out of nowhere.

"Who are you?"

Her voice was cold, completely different from Pandelion’s nervous and overly respectful tone from before.

She raised one of the daggers toward me, her brilliant blue eyes narrowing dangerously.

"State your identity, your purpose and the reason you dare to stand before this Queen in such ridiculous clothing and that hairless body."

A chilling pressure erupted from her body.

"Otherwise, your head shall no longer remain attached to your worthless neck."

"..."

Wait... What?

For a few seconds there, I couldn’t say a single word and for all the credit I had given Arza for being completely nonchalant about everything, even she looked surprised.

I mean, who wouldn’t be?

We had been traveling with a panda who had suddenly turned into a hot woman.

What kind of cliché anime was that? Now that I thought about it, hell, there might actually be some kind of anime with that exact name.

But again, that wasn’t important right now.

What was this creature supposed to be? Did it evolve after being used as a cushion? Or did my glorious self falling on it somehow make it transform into a woman in an attempt to seduce me?

I mean, anything was possible.

But then again, if that were actually the case, she probably wouldn’t be looking at me like she wanted to cut my head off and feed it some vicious monster.

"Where did Pandelion go? And who are you?"

I asked while keeping both hands behind my back.

A card had already appeared between my fingers, while two more floated silently above us, ready to attack the moment I gave the order.

Meanwhile, Arza was staring at the woman as if she were some strange circus attraction she was seeing for the first time.

As soon as I mentioned the name of Pandelion, the woman lowered her daggers slightly and looked around herself.

"If that dumb idiot told you our real name, then I can only assume you are the allies we met in that damned Murgin ship."

"What do you mean?"

I asked.

She looked back at me.

"Are all humans this stupid or are you some kind of special child even among them?" She wasn’t even slightly polite. "Did you not just watch my body emerge from that fat shell of his? And yet you still ask such useless questions."

Now that caught my attention.

How did she know I was a human?

From what I understood, humans weren’t exactly well known around this part of the universe and everyone I met including that damned Pirates seemed to think I was some hairless Monkin but she identified me almost immediately.

Interesting.

"Yeah but a woman emerging out of something that strange isn’t exactly something I have seen before to draw any conclusions," I said. "So do you mind explaining what the hell that was about?"

I narrowed my eyes slightly.

"And whether we can even trust you?"

I already had an idea about what this was but there wasn’t any harm in confirming my doubts.

She clicked her tongue.

"I won’t ask you to trust me." Her gaze briefly moved towards the land around us before focusing back on me. "But from how I survived that fall and escaped from that ship, it is only reasonable to think that you might have played a significant role in both."

She paused dramatically.

"So I suppose I owe you some truth."

She muttered the words in such an ominous tone that she sounded like some edgy wannabe villain dramatically revealing her tragic backstory.

Then she opened her mouth again.

"Pandelion is not a real living being..."

Her voice became even colder.

"...He is merely one of three personalities created because of my flaw."