After that we had dinner with me teasing Peko-Chan every chance I got and father laughing out loud to it while mom smiled playfully as well.
"Joseph, would you like to see the new models I just made?" mother asked me as I instantly agreed. It may sound weird but as I grew up seeing mother's work I ended up gaining an interest in fashion designing as well.
Mom even let me work with it every once in a while and she said that if I keep at it she will introduce me to the work as well.
No need to say that the model for my clothes is usually Peko-chan. It helps that I even work with cosplaying, and I got to say that making Peko dress up as a magical girl is just too funny.
One bad aspect of this body is that I am always looking for things to entertain me as everything just becomes too easy to me after a while.
"Sure, let's go to your study to see it." I said, but before that.
"Sorry dear, but Joseph will be coming with me." Father said. "If he is so insistent about helping that girl he should at least know her and we should hear her story as well."
Mother sighed in defeat and let the two of us go.
As father and I entered the dungeon I could not help but notice the smell. It was honestly disgusting, but I shouldn't expect much better considering how we usually put here those who try to invade devil territory.
The territory of house Barbatus is right on the limits of the devil territory and is surrounded by a few tribes of other species like the elves, giants, werewolves, fallen angels, fairies and demons.
Weird, I know. Many consider devils and demons being one and the same but this is far from the truth.
Demons are humanoid creatures that usually just live for carnage and most of the time are stupid beings that go out devouring and hunting whatever they see.
There are a few exceptions, but even then they are usually hunted down by their own kind so it only natural to not trust them.
Well, I would still like to meet one who wasn't from the idiotic kind, maybe it could be part of my peerage.
Anyway, considering how surrounded we are by potential enemies we constantly have new 'guests' in these dungeons, most being idiots that want nothing more than to attack us, assassins from one other clan, or just your regular spy.
Naturally we developed methods to extract info from them, and these methods sometimes are quite messy and this smell is the result.
The smell of blood and putrid flesh.
And in one of the cells we saw our target, a girl that couldn't possibly be any older than 9 years old. She was chained to the wall by her neck and arms with special chains that blocked her powers completely. She had a wrathful face, as if she wanted nothing more than to bite our heads off and get away from here.
Considering how scantily dressed she was we could see multiple marks of torture and punishment in her entire body, but one thing attracted me attention more. The fact that her ears were of the wrong color. Instead of black her hair was maroon and she only had one PINK tail.
"Here she is, the Nekoshou Hainekou." father said, much for my confusion. "Didn't you have questions for her? Go right ahead."
Well, at least this means that Kuroka's situation still might be more salvageable. I may have wasted all this effort, but on the other hand I know that Kuroka is still with her scummy master and I still have time to accumulate influence and power to save her.
Anyway, now that I am here anyway I might as well ask Hainekou what happened.
I entered the cell slowly as I didn't want to startle her and when I was close enough I took of her chains as a sign of good will. Father is here anyway so she definitely will not manage to wound me anyway.
After I did that she warily looked at me, probably waiting to be attacked, but I did nothing as I took a step back and presented her with a chair to sit down.
Father was looking at everything from a slight distance as he wanted to see how this would go.
As she sat down I could see how exhausted she was, her body almost dismantled on the chair as her tiredness won over her wariness and she simply sat down in utter exhaustion.
"Your name is Hainekou, right? It's nice meeting you, my name is Joseph Barbatus." I said, presenting my hand for a handshake. She, very slowly, took my hand and shook it back.
"Hainekou." is what she said, her voice quite horsy and dry. She seems to be suffering from dehydration and malnutrition, and it doesn't seem to be from just one day either. Just looking at her ideas about what happened to her already formed in my head, and none of them is good.
"Hainekou, I know this will probably be hard to believe but I want you to listen to what I have to say carefully since this might be your last chance. I want to hear YOUR side of the story, the reason for you to kill your master and everything involved. Right now we are the only chance you have of keeping your head, so you can either talk now or keep your story to the tomb as these are the only options left to you." I said, my voice filled with power despite how young I am. My father nodded on the back, if it was in agreement to what I said or if it was due to being proud pf me was anyone's guess.
Hainekou looked at me with distrust, but after a while she relented and started telling her story.