Shiro blinked, completely dazed.
"Mm-hmm~" D nodded, confirming she hadn't misheard.
Honestly, the little spider was the one D had held the lowest expectations for at the start. Yet, against all odds, the very spider that should have perished early on in the Great Labyrinth was the one who ultimately stepped into the realm of the gods—a place ordinary mortals couldn't even touch. On the other hand, the Demon Lord and Potimas, whom she actually had high hopes for, had failed to make that leap.
To D, Shiro was a constant source of surprises and unknowns. She genuinely liked this newcomer and didn't mind spoiling her a bit.
As for the *other* spider currently giving her a headache...
D instinctively glanced over at the cat-eared girl, who had just stood up to clear the dishes. The exact moment her original form achieved godhood, this cat-eared girl had split off to become an entirely independent entity. Her situation was very similar to Shiro's—a brand-new life carrying the memories of the original host.
And because of that, the thick fog surrounding the cat-eared girl's soul had vanished, allowing D to read her mind perfectly. What she found inside was a piece of information that gave even her a bit of a headache.
"Hmm?" Moe-Wife instinctively covered her rear with her hands, glaring back at D with absolute vigilance. "What are you staring at me for?"
"Go on with your business," D waved her hand, signaling she wasn't interested right now.
"Freak," Moe-Wife muttered under her breath, gathering the bowls and chopsticks before fleeing into the kitchen and locking the door behind her.
D offered a small, amused smile, not minding the attitude at all.
Her gaze shifted right back to Shiro. After the initial shock, the girl had gradually recovered her composure. At the same time, a strange mix of emotions began to brew deep within her heart.
The little spider fiercely yearned for freedom and absolutely hated being controlled. Because of that, ever since her reincarnation, she had been continuously fighting against any powerful entity that dared to threaten her autonomy. The Earth Dragons, Mother, the Demon Lord, the old elf, Gülie... even the impending collapse of the world itself.
Yet, the only entity who remained entirely out of her reach—the one she had given up on fighting from the very beginning—was D.
To be recognized and validated by an entity like D carried an unbelievable amount of weight. After all, she was fundamentally a creature made by D's own hand. *If it's D... being bound to her doesn't actually seem like the worst thing in the world~*
The scandalous thought flashed across her mind like lightning. Shiro instantly startled herself, shaking her head frantically to drive the idea out of her brain. She was absolutely not someone who would compromise her core principles! This was definitely not a reflection of her true inner feelings. Though she deeply revered D from the bottom of her soul, it was strictly reverence and nothing more.
*Wait... could it be that I'm actually a closet masochist?!*
Right at that exact second, D suddenly leaned her face in incredibly close, to the point where their lips were a mere hair's breadth from brushing.
Shiro's face instantly flushed a deep, violent crimson. They were way too close!
"I really shouldn't have given you a name," D let out a soft sigh, a trace of genuine disappointment in her eyes. She easily read right through Shiro's internal monologue just now, and it was blindingly obvious that the girl was being heavily influenced by the naming contract.
Shiro: "Eh?"
"Because, when a god bestows a name, it places a binding shackle upon the recipient's soul," D spoke the cruel reality in a soft, whispering melody, yet Shiro found the words tasting sweet as honey.
"Absolute, unmitigated freedom is the only thing that allows you to radiate your most brilliant light."
"Yet even so... I still find myself wanting to keep you right by my side, even if it means tearing away your wings of freedom... And it is entirely your fault."
Listening to D's confession, Shiro felt completely lost. "Why on earth is it my fault? What did I even do wrong?"
"Your only error lies in the fact that you are simply far too charming." D curved the corners of her lips, her smile dripping with a gentle, intoxicating allure.
*Thump—*
It felt as though a pink arrow had cleanly pierced straight through Shiro's heart. In that exact moment, her brain came dangerously close to completely melting down. Clutching her racing chest, her mind went completely numb as literal steam began to billow from the top of her head.
[LanLi: Poor Shirazawa. Let me find a green hat for him.]
"Y-You... You..." Shiro's lips trembled violently, but she couldn't string together a single coherent sentence.
"Miss Spider, you belong entirely to me, and I have absolutely no intention of releasing my grip."
"As long as you remain safely within the palm of my hand, you are completely free to soar as high as your heart desires."
"If you accept that, then until the heavens collapse, the earth splits, and the oceans run completely dry, I shall thoroughly dote on you."
D's smile grew even more brilliant, like the radiant warmth of a midsummer sun, completely illuminating the entire room.
The moment the declaration finished, Shiro felt the blood in her veins completely freeze over, a thunderous roar echoing in her ears.
"I... I... I..." She shook like a leaf, instantly reverting right back into her extreme social-anxiety persona, entirely incapable of generating a single word.
Everything that happened after that became an absolute blur; she couldn't even remember the main reason she had traveled all this way to see D in the first place. Wrapped in a daze, Shiro materialized right back inside the manor near the Demon Lord's Castle.
Clutched in her hands was a massive assortment of parting gifts D had casually loaded her up with, yet she was completely oblivious to them, her mind entirely trapped in a loop of her own frantic thoughts.
"Shiro, you're back?" A long-range telepathic message suddenly fired, snapping her straight out of her daze.
"Ah? Um... yeah..."
"Make a quick trip down to the labyrinth. We need to collect the remaining clones of the Nightmare. You have absolutely no idea what an insane mess these little guys can cause when left to their own devices..."
"Mm..."
"What's wrong with you? Your mind seems incredibly unsettled."
"N-Nothing. I'm completely fine."
"..."
Back in the human realm, Moe-Wife—who had acted as the ultimate front-row spectator to the entire drama—watched the detestable woman humming a cheerful little melody in a phenomenal mood, her mouth twitching uncontrollably.
"That is a massive amount of yuri energy..."
"What did you just say?"
"Failing to conquer a specific guy, so you choose to systematically conquer his girl's heart instead... Honestly, only a mind as twisted as yours could come up with something like that," the cat-eared girl curled her lip, tossing out a sharp critique.
Hearing the analysis, D arched an elegant eyebrow. "Then your guess is completely wrong. Whether it's Shiro or Shirazawa... I fully intend to claim both of them for myself!"
"...Heh." The cat-eared girl let out a cold, flat sneer, choosing to ignore the madness as she went right back to sweeping the floor. Although she felt a faint shred of sympathy for the spider who had just been ruthlessly played, she was entirely powerless to intervene. Who could blame her when D was simply far too skilled at flirting?
"And of course, that includes you as well!" D suddenly reached out, snagging Moe-Wife's tail and hoisting her straight up into the air.
"Meow-ouch?!" Moe-Wife's fur instantly exploded as she began to thrash around in pure, embarrassed rage. "I am never going to submit to your tyranny! Unhand me this instant!"
*Smack!*
"Meowww~"
"..."
Down within the Lower Stratum of the Great Elroe Labyrinth.
Under Shiro's direct authority, the massive white horde filed into the spatial rifts in an orderly fashion. However, Shiro's mind was clearly somewhere else entirely; she was executing the commands completely on autopilot.
"You've been acting entirely hollow ever since you got back. Did D do something to you?" Shirazawa walked over, casually poking the shoulder of the girl who was staring blankly at the crossroad, asking with deep concern.
"No, nothing happened. Why do you ask?" Shiro snapped her head up to look at him, a trace of visible panic flashing deep within her eyes, though she was working overtime to look perfectly calm.
"Then why do you look exactly like a little creature that just got bullied half to death?" Shirazawa's brows knitted tightly together. He was far from an idiot; he could clearly tell that Shiro's current behavior was completely abnormal. She had undeniably sustained some sort of intense psychological shock, yet he couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.
"Uh..." Shiro completely froze.
Honestly, what on earth was wrong with her? Why had she deteriorated into this incredibly pathetic state the moment she returned? This was completely uncharacteristic of her.
After weighing her options, she ultimately decided to temporarily hide the truth from Shirazawa. She convinced herself that she could handle this weird anomaly on her own.
As for Shirazawa, he chose not to press the issue any further. He harbored a hundred percent absolute trust in Shiro, fully confident that she would never do anything to betray his feelings.
However, the tangible byproduct of this trip manifested as Shiro's dimensional transfer magic growing leaps and bounds more refined by the day—an anomaly that obviously pointed to a concrete root cause. But that was a story for another time.
By the time Shirazawa successfully decoded and mastered the laws of dimensional transfer himself, D had already completely vanished from the grid...
---
LanLi: Nothing happened btw.
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