A intelligent spectre

"... Thank you for saving my life, benevolent emissary of chaos."

"Okay, first of all, you're welcome but secondly I am no emissary of anything or anyone, my name is Alex. Thirdly I have some questions for you… Let's start with your name."

Having spent a day with the wolf eared girl he rescued, Alex finally judged that she was in a state where he could ask her questions after she had expressed her gratitude.

"My name is Lia."

"Nice to meet you, Lia. You said something about 'chaos' before, what is that?"

Taking a second to greet the girl in front of him, Alex immediately continued his questioning. If there was anything he had learned from growing up in the slums was that information was everything.

"Chaos is chaos, nothing more nothing less."

But instead of answering Alex's question, Lia looked at him like a complete moron, making Alex realized he just asked something along the lines of 'what's the sky?'.

"Okay then, could you please assume I know nothing at all and explain it to me in more detail?"

"I'll try to…"

Although it was an extremely strange request, Lia tried her best to formulate her thoughts in a way that made sense as her bushy black tail swung back and forth in a rhythmic fashion.

"Chaos is the elemental force of the world, some say it created everything while others say that it's something unnatural that will end all life. With the power of chaos, people can command the power of nature or even summon an emissary, as long as the price is paid in full."

"Well, that doesn't sound ominous in the slightest… So why did you think I was an emissary of chaos?"

"Because you are a spectre. It is said that they are beings which are made of pure chaos, that chaos is also surrounding you at the moment."

Looking around himself in response to Lia's comment, Alex noticed that there was a kind of fuzzy outline around his body, it was like it was subtly and continuously changing its shape.

"Is this chaos?"

"It is, my dear saviour. Although Chaos is all around us, creatures made of pure chaos like yourself carry a significant presence and are revered by my kin."

All of a sudden Alex's world view changed, it was like being made aware of the so called chaos made him see it in its entirety, unbeknownst to Alex it was because his body kept changing according to his thoughts and needs.

"... So this is chaos? It seems to swarm around me alright, and you too Lia."

Reaching out towards Lia, Alex tried to grasp the chaos which was swarming around the girl with large animal like ears and to his surprise it actually worked. Feeling a strange sensation, Alex watched in shock as the chaos was absorbed by his body. With a strangely satisfying sensation spreading throughout his body, it was like he had just eaten a massive Chateaubriand Steak paired with the best red wine he had ever tasted.

(So this is why I don't need to eat… Interesting.)

After having absorbed the chaos Alex felt a new kind of energy moving through his body which filled him with a strange kind of anticipation.

"So one can use chaos to do things, but what kind of things can you do with it exactly?"

"That's a bit hard to answer… While I'm in no way an expert, I don't believe that there's a limit to things one can do with the power of chaos."

"Then I'm going to try and do something ridiculous."

Focusing his attention on a single one of his claws Alex noticed that the fuzzy outline disappeared, as if his attention on that point somehow reinforced its shape.

(Wait a second… It seems like the perception I hold of 'me' is a determining factor in how I look, in that case, I should be able to change my own shape and by that extend perhaps my abilities?)

Feeling like he was grasping something, Alex closed his eyes as he started focusing. Lia who had no idea of what was going on looked at her saviour which slowly started to change, gradually morphing into something else. Feeling an initial resistance to the change, Alex struggled for a while until he realized that it was easier to take a new shape if he took long and deep breaths, little did he know that he was absorbing the surrounding 'chaos' to make the process faster.

(...How is this then?)Examining his changed body Alex was happy to see that his hypophysis had proven correct, his body had completely changed into something which looked way more human like.

"How do I look, Lia?"

"..."

"What? Is it-"

As he didn't get a response, Alex turned his attention Lia which was in a state of pure shock.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Only after poking Lia on the forehead a few times did she seem to come alive again as her expression changed to one of utmost respect.

"My dear saviour, I sincerely apologise for acting so disrespectfully until now! Please forgive me, o master of shadows!"

Before Alex could even react, Lia bowed down so deeply that she slammed her head against the ground with considerable force.

"Wait a second, why the hell are you bowing to me!?"

Finding himself more worried about Lia's health than anything else, Alex struggled to have Lia stop grinding her face into the dirt.

"Please allow me to call you master from now on!"

With an extremely determined expression, Lia made it absolutely clear that she would most likely lose her purpose in life if Alex rejected, so with a bit of reluctance he accepted that proposition.

"... Fine. But in exchange for that, I expect you to tell me about this world.""Of course master!"

With a bright and happy expression on her face, Lia's tail started wagging in an energetic fashion until she realized that her master might have something to ask of her and quieted down as she sat down on the ground and started waiting patiently.

"Okay first question: Why are you suddenly so loyal to me?"

"Because!-"

"Yeah, no. That's not going to cut it, try again."

Immediately shutting down Lia's attempt at an answer Alex explained his reasoning before Lia could claim that he was being unreasonable.

"Even if you claim to worship me we're still strangers, using a reason like 'because you're awesome' or something like that isn't going to work. If anything it is going to make me leave you here and go my own way."

Alex knew full well that he shouldn't outright trust anyone as he had been betrayed numerous times in his past life as he struggled against the world and built up his criminal empire.

(Well, I was betrayed in the end still… Although it most likely wasn't by any one of my people that snitched.)

Still, the facts didn't really change, in the end he was betrayed by someone, caught by the corrupt establishment and put to death such a sadistic way. Due to that, it was in Alex's best interest to not trust anyone in this new world, if he wanted to survive it would be in his best interest to kill this girl after he got as much information out of her as he could.

(Actually letting her live for that long might pose too much danger, if my hunch is correct she's worshipping me for some religious reason.)

In Alex's experience, dealing with any sort of religion was bad news. With extremely strong held beliefs which seemed to change on a whim and morality which allowed, and even in some case encouraged punishment of non believers/heretics, dealing with them would only lead to trouble.

(I didn't die such an embarrassing and infuriating death just be miraculously revived and get a second chance to die from such a stupid mistake… She needs to die, right now.)

While Lia was still trying to think of a logical reasoning to follow Alex he slowly started reaching out towards her head as his fingers changed back into blades, visualizing the main arteries in her neck he moved in for the kill.

"Are you going to kill me?"But before Alex could slit her throat open and kill her, Lia turned her face up as she focused her attention on Alex as she locked eyes with him. No fear was visible in her eyes or face at all, every instinct told Alex that she truly didn't mind dying as long as she got to know the reason beforehand.

"Yes and no. Because you could be trouble in the future and killing you will increase my chance of survival… Although, if I made the decision to kill you I would be sealing my own fate."

Retracting his claws once more, Alex carefully placed his hand on top of Lia's head as she was filled with confusion.

"But why would that be?""Because survival isn't the same as living."

Even if Alex wanted to be ultra efficient and safe by eliminating every single risk to his life, reality often differed from expectations. Although Alex had killed countless people over his last life, with a lot of those victims at least bearing some resemblance to Lia in front of him he couldn't kill her, it would leave a bad taste in his mouth to kill someone he had saved when she hadn't done anything against him.

"Forget about that entire worship thing Lia, just tell me about yourself. How did you end up in this transport?"

"Umm, that's…."Making a far more troubled face than last time Alex asked her a question, Lia made it clear that she really didn't want to answer, luckily Alex was smart enough to put 2 and 2 together.

"So you committed some sort of crime?"

Having hit the nail on the head Lia tried her best to sink even further as her presence almost disappeared while she shut her mouth tightly.

(Well, of course, you did. Why else would you be inside a prison transport?)

"I'm guessing you killed someone."

"... I…-"

"Well, who cares about that? More importantly, I don't really know anything about this world, will you help me find my place here Lia?"

Seeing how much Lia disliked that topic Alex cut her off before she could complete her sentence as he placed a hand on her head and started to ruffle up her hair. Although Lia was confused by that initially, she soon showed a bright smile as she looked up and made eye contact with Alex.

"At your will, Master!~"