Reincarnated into a Snow Griffin

Chapter 95

"So, who is this guy? What do we know about him?" I ask while flying, not only to distract Ethan from the journey as I think his fingers may be turning blue at this point by how hard he is gripping at me without letting go in the slightest, and to fill up the odd silent gaps that let the mind wonder to what we are about to encounter.

"I don’t know much, he is a very sneaky bastard who likes to keep to himself, but not more than money in his pockets."

"I see." I say, already having a bad image of such creature.

"Plus I have never really met him, after getting out from there there were plenty of demons interested in his secrets, so is not a surprise that he went into hiding after it, plus I did not have a real reason to search for him until now, too much trouble only out of curiosity."

"I see, it makes sense, but how are we going to find him then?"

"Never say I did not have a way to find him, just that I did not meet him, never had a reason until this moment... but I know my way around."

I little too much so, I think to myself, something at the back of my mind that bothers me enough to bring back later, but not to ask at that moment, especially when we finally are close enough to see our destination, at least myself at least, I think it since Ethan could not truly guide me with his fear of heights, only with general directions like west from the volcano, closer to the beach, and so forth, plus I have my privileged owl vision too.

But after questioning for direction many times since the instructions were too vague, he only said back an: "You will know when we reach it."

And know I did.

We knew that the mysterious creature was one to be allied with the Immoral Famish Demon Clan, and as much as it did not help since it was the biggest and more mixed of the clans, it pointed us in the direction of the major city of this island under its command, the bustling Demonshell, the commercial center of demons, what some would call a huge slum, but were things truly happened, from moral to immoral things.

And I could tell now why I would easily find it, simply because it had been built inside an enormous, gigantic, colossal size skeleton of a beast that I was happy it was long gone, its body curved and the white ribs hanging in the air just like its head and open short snout were at the front, its huge turned and twisting down horns supporting its upper body weight up in the air, as well as the long now bony arms, but oddly its body would shrink at the other end, and instead of parallel legs it had two adjoined bone lines, almost like two... tails?

"What manner of creature is that?"

"Oh, we arrived already?"

"Not really, we were pretty far, is just that my vision is that good." I caught myself saying out loud, finding oddly comforting to be able to speak about my special non human condition so openly, even if I was in its form right now.

"Ah, I see, well, that thing has been here before demons, hell, perhaps even before the volcanos, who knows, but I heard some think they live deep in the water, and until this day."

I shudder with the mere thought of finding a mountain of a monster like this in the deepest darkest part of the ocean. Yup, talk about helping with a phobia there, nor that I ever intended to get any close to such place and such creature ever.

"You think? Then why the huge horns?" I mean, never seen an aquatic creature with horns before, not that I remember anyway, but it being a marine animal was not the first thing that crossed my mind at all.

"Well, is a long term discussion between the demons, almost like a little bogey man fairy tale, but in the serious circles they say it is because its back ends in what looks like swimming paddles, like sharks but longer, and that such a huge creature would not be able to hunt very much, so like whales he could only eat small things hidden in the sand, so he would prompt his body up with the arms and mess the ground floor of the sea sand up with its horns, bringing the food up." He shrugs. "But I mean, it makes sense and all but so does that it perhaps lived inside rivers of lava and it came out in one of its eruptions, so no one really knows."

"Uhm..." I answer, still having a long way ahead until we reached it as this island proved to be much bigger than the name made it sound like, almost feels like another continent, but then it should be big to be the central place for the demons to live at, even before the barrier. "Doesn’t look safe at all." I end up saying, slitting my pupils to have a better look at the seemly floating structures of bridges and houses built along the spine, on top of each other, and even inside the hanging mouth.

Seemed a little bit... disrespectful to the creature, to build a city inside its remains, I mean, I bet angry ghosts were coming out of their graves from less than this.

Ethan chuckles at my commentary, saying: "Well, the city has been there for a couple of hundred of years, ever growing, but I bet it takes a person like yourself to put your feet there for all to fall apart." He says, making fun of me in my face and my silly worries.

"... We are still flying." I say in a serious tone, but cannot help but smile once his grips harden once more and he stutters:

"I-I was joking, just joking, no need to take it seriously, ha, ha-ha."

"Ethan..." I say, still enjoying playing around like this, even if I had a feeling it would come back to bite me in the ass later.

"Y-yes?"

"Sush it will you?"

"Y-yes, my king, well behaved as a newborn kitty."

I flap my wings, satisfied with his answer, but then I think... weren’t kitties not well behaved at all? What comparison is that oi?!