Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

Chapter 359 Consequences (4)

"What did you want to talk about?"

With her chin resting atop her cupped hands, Irene looked right in my face with a sleazy, ironic yet also perfectly empty smile.

An expression of a predator amused by the struggle of the prey it could finish at any given moment... Or, that's how it looked to me at the very least.

"Are you seriously asking about it?" I asked, raising my left eyebrow while leaning back in my chair, never turning my eyes away from Irene's face.

Even now, with Cassie gone, this damned girl continued to act her role, either clueless that I knew about her real identity already...

Or maybe the things were a lot more complicated than I'd expect them?

'What if there's another Irene, and this lass has nothing to do with that damned darkness?'

For a moment, I doubted whether or not I was morally allowed to go through with my plans.

But then, a single memory of mine flashed through my mind.

The pile of corpses of my own making that vanished overnight, consumed by the greedy influence of the celestial forest.

'I've killed so many. With that in mind, one soul more or less, how would it matter?'

"Why are you so silent?" Irene asked, her chin pushing her fingers so far they arched down. "You wanted to talk..." her eyes sparked with the vile amusement I knew so damn well from my relatively recent past. "Could it be..."

"Now that you are face to face with an actually beautiful woman, you forgot how to speak?!"

Irene's eyes widened and so did her wicked grin.

For but a moment, I could swear I saw her real face.

The face of a bully about to introduce a brand new form of abusing their victim.

'I guess that's what happens once one goes beyond the level of supreme and their domains,' I thought, staring right into Irene's face.

"Aren't you a bit too comfortable, resting like that?" I asked, blinking my eyes once the burden of staring across dimensions grew too big, forcing me to look away.

And at this moment, the very first crack appeared on Irene's act, with her eyes widening up a little.

She no longer looked down at me with her slightly squinted eyes that oozed a sense of mental superiority. Her entire presence no longer made it feel as if I was merely an amusing worm dancing on her palm all according to her wishes.

And for the first time, Irene's eyes betrayed a hint of... curiosity?

"I can see you," I added, blinking my eyes a few times to push aside the pain of pushing them a little bit too hard. Still, I kept my sights right on Irene's face, refusing to let even a single hint of emotion escape my attention. "The real you."

The air of the cafe suddenly grew stale. And within the silence that suddenly surrounded us... Irene started to glitch, her entire body shifting half an inch to the side for a single instant only to revert right back to how it should be... And for the whole process to then repeat a few more times.

Irene calmly closed her eyes. She then parted her hands and lifted her chin, just to turn her right hand towards me and point at me with one of her fingers.

And when she opened her eyes up again... I've finally seen them.

Her real eyes. Two perfectly black and circular pupils surrounded by perfectly crimson irises.

"You've wanted to speak with me. So now that I'm here..."

The slight whisk of aura I'd let go vanished when an ocean of dark aura suddenly exploded all over the place, drowning everything around the two of us in the flood of near-endless power.

But this wasn't the same kind of aura that I've seen others use to power the constructs of their spells.

No. It was something much closer to my elemental darkness, forming up and condensing into semi-solid shapes only to then disperse and merge with the rest of the flow, only to endlessly repeat this process over and over again.

Irene's aura clearly pushed to turn into something tangible, yet a force I couldn't even perceive continued to deny her aura its wish.

"Now that I'm here, don't you think it's rude to make a lady wait?" Irene asked, her hand still directed at me and her eyes once again shut closed. "What did you wish to speak with me about?"