You had to admit, Moga was a thoroughly pragmatic sort. Maybe it came from leaving the Elven Kingdom early and drifting alone in the wider world, but once she realized this eldritch god might actually help her, she accepted the situation fast and began figuring out how to leverage that “edge” to profit off the coming expedition into the ultra-ancient ruin.

Naturally, those plans contained the usual little calculations and hedges. She thought keeping them tucked away in her heart and indulging in a few secret daydreams wouldn’t matter—unaware that, via mind magic, Yvette heard every last thought loud and clear.

Still, there was no real malice in Moga’s considerations. Mostly, she was weighing whether the eldritch god would help if things got dangerous, and how far she could push without making the god angry.

Seeing her thoughts weren’t that dark, Yvette didn’t particularly mind. People aren’t saints—the point isn’t what you think,

but what you do.

Evening came quickly. Downstairs was still noisy with jeers and laughter; towns stuffed with adventurers never lacked for “nightlife” in all its derivatives.

Moga’s nightlife was a complete blank, so she turned in early. Unlike usual, though, she lay there staring at the black ceiling, tossing and turning, sleep refusing to come.

Beside her, Yvette quietly brushed her senses across the girl’s mind and found it crisscrossed with a great many…unspeakable scenes.

Obviously, sharing a bed with a sentient being of unknown sex and grotesque form had been quite a shock for an elf girl who, long-lived or not, was actually still very young. She seemed terrified something awful might happen once she fell asleep, her heart full of unease.

Of course, nothing of the sort would happen; Yvette wasn’t some tentacle monster crawled out of Abella’s smutty pulp. But it wasn’t convenient—nor necessary—to explain.

So, as those mental images grew more abstract and warped, Yvette—her true body still back in the End of Days—decided she’d seen enough, shut her eyes, and went to sleep.

Morning light slipped through the inn’s lone tiny window, laying a weak beam across the rough, yellow-stained sheets.

A moment later, long lashes fluttered; Moga jolted up from a deep, sticky nightmare, sitting bolt upright.

In the dream she had sunk into a lightless sea, her vision choked with lunging gray tendrils—cold and slick—coiling tight, strangling her breath away. Even awake, her heart still pounded; the fear hadn’t fully drained.

A dream?

She stared dully at the slightly worn but fairly clean bedding. No cold, slick sensation on her skin. Then she yanked back the quilt and saw a gray tendril coiled at the other end of the bed, like a sleeping, jade-sheened serpent.

Not a dream— She let out a long, heavy breath, dispirited. But seeing the tendril motionless where it lay, a bold idea suddenly bubbled up.

Is the eldritch god… asleep?

Could I sneak away while it’s like this?

If she could shake off this terrifying presence, she’d accept giving up the labyrinth’s potential treasure—as well as the travel money she’d scraped together and spent along the way—

gladly!

With the gentlest, most careful movement of her life, she began inching her body away, muscles taut, terrified the bedboards would creak even a hair.

After more than a minute, she’d eased one leg off the bed; her pale toes slid slowly into the boot on the floor.

A few more minutes passed. Just as she was shifting all her weight off the mattress, the coiled tendril twitched. Its tip lifted soundlessly; the eerie, unsettling eyeball opened. As it slid up her pale thigh, a voice with a trace of lazy, even girlish lilt said, “Good morning, Moga.”

Moga decided she had to be out of her mind. This was a terrifying, grim eldritch god—whatever its true body looked like, it had to be hideous and disgusting, just like this gray tendril. How could she possibly be imagining it as a girl?

In any case, hope was over. As the tendril cinched around her waist like a rope again, she fell silent for a beat, then answered respectfully, “Good morning, my lord.”

“Headed down for breakfast next?” the god asked calmly.

Another extremely mundane question—but a god wouldn’t ask it for no reason. There had to be some subtext.

Moga nodded lightly and replied with care, “N—no need. I never eat breakfast.”

She assumed the god was hurrying her along—don’t waste time on trivialities.

To her surprise, the god said, “No breakfast? That won’t do. It’s bad for you. You’re only nineteen, aren’t you? That’s practically a baby for elves, right? It’s your growing years.”

It did make sense, but Moga couldn’t fathom why the god would say it—or what meaning lay behind it. After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Understood, my lord.”

Ten minutes later, after washing her face, she went to the tavern downstairs. While eating alone in a corner, she finally understood why the god had said that—because in a blink when no one was looking, a mouth sprouted on the tendril and took a bite of each thing on her plate. Then it even critiqued them: “Mediocre.”

Her hand froze on the bread. She hadn’t expected the god truly was interested in food and had only told her to eat so it could sample breakfast—

Was this really something an eldritch god would do?

Annoyance hit next. You took a bite out of everything—how am I supposed to eat it now? If I eat what you left, isn’t that like… an indirect kiss?

But if she didn’t eat, that obvious display of disgust might provoke the god. And she was dirt poor; breakfast money wasn’t nothing. Wasting it would make her heart bleed.

So, cursing nonstop in her head, she swallowed her nausea and finished the food the god had nibbled—every bite feeling like she was choking down humiliation.

On the other side, Yvette heard all of it and felt a bit wronged. I only tasted a bite—do you have to roast me that hard?

That said, even if you’re forcing compliance, you can’t swing the stick forever; sometimes you have to offer a carrot.

After thinking it over, she asked, “How are you getting to the labyrinth later?”

“On foot—same way I came back yesterday,” Moga said, dropping the grumbling and answering honestly.

“Too slow. By the time you get there, others will already be on site, which will hamper you a lot.” Yvette said, “I’ll teach you a wind spell to boost your travel speed. Learn it well—you can use it to make time.”

Wind magic?!

Moga blinked. The towering rage from having her breakfast poached vanished in a flash, replaced by a sudden, bubbling joy.

A wind spell for travel? That already sounds high-tier!

Willing to teach a subordinate powerful magic of her own accord… Maybe this eldritch god wasn’t quite as awful as she’d imagined.