Chapter 386: 386

Michelle stared at the miniature mark on the little snake’s forehead, reaching out to touch her own forehead.

If she wanted to, by smearing her blood over the mark on both her and the snake’s foreheads, she would be able to stop the process, but that would hurt the little snake.

And since it was a baby, it would probably die from that.

Michelle might have been an assassin in her past life, and basically a killer in her new life, but not once in her two lives had she touched a baby or a child.

And that wouldn’t change anytime soon.

She could say that that was the remainder of humanity she had within her, but that would be a lie.

She had seen people, humans, take children hostage and kill infants for profit.

With animals, she had also heard of cases when a predator killed a cub, but it wasn’t that often and those weren’t intelligent creatures.

Then, there were intelligent creatures of the world she was in.

As far as she knew, even from Rivenaar’s memories, beasts and monsters had this unspoken respect of young ones.

Killing a cub meant angering not only its closely related beasts or monsters, but the whole beast or monster community, if it could be called that.

Because monsters and beasts didn’t want demons amongst them.

That was one of the reasons monsters and beasts looked down on humans.

Because humans were able to use, hurt, and even kill children for profit.

It didn’t matter that it was only a minority of humans that were so cruel.

Most creatures viewed humans as a unitary species; if one human could do it, the others could too.

The little snake was just a baby.

Michelle was a human.

If a beast or a monster heard that a baby snake, a weak little creature, proceeded on its own to form a contract with a human, there would be a high probability that the beast would assume that the human stopped the contracting process.

But that didn’t happen.

Michelle let the process go on until the mark on both her and the snake’s forehead disappeared.

Honestly, she was expecting no big change to happen to her.

The snake didn’t seem strong, so she shouldn’t get any power from him.

He also only seemed to at most possess the poison element which she already had, so that wouldn’t affect her either.

But she was wrong.

A change did happen.

Maybe because a contract between a human and a beast was different from one between a beast and an uncategorized creature like herself.

Michelle actually felt her power draining towards the contract.

And not just her spirit energy.

All her power.

Her spirit energy of all elements, soul energy, shadow essence, and even her soul leash, the Binding Chains.

And somehow, she felt that within her own mind, the memory manipulation skill got activated and sent something into the contract.

The knowledge of her skills started flashing before her eyes.

That showed that if some of her memories were indeed being copied into the contract, it was the memory of all her skills.

Michelle was barely able to focus on the outside world because of the knowledge flashing through her mind and eyes, but she still locked her gaze on the snake.

Was what was happening the fault of the snake, was it special, or was it because of the changes in her physiology after she lost her humanity to the Life Stones?

The second option was much more likely, but Michelle also thought the snake affected it to at least some extent.

But it was hard to think about anything at the moment.

There was nothing else she could do except just wait until the event passed.

The snake also didn’t seem to be in the best condition.

Its coils around itself tightened significantly like it was in pain and trying to hide itself.

And Michelle believed that even more when the little snake hid its head in the coils of its body.

The tiny creature on her hand was clearly suffering, and she couldn’t help it.

And it was suffering because of its own rashness, maybe even mistake.

Seeing what was going on (though not understanding it) Mare stepped forward and took the little snake from Michelle’s hand.

Gently moving her fingers, she had the snake uncoil and straighten.

Like that, she moved it to wrap around Michelle’s neck.

For a small snake, it had quite the long body.

It seemed that the new position helped the little snake, but it still tried to tighten the coil, which in turn pressed hard on Michelle’s neck.

Michelle could reinforce her neck even while the memories were flooding her mind, which would in turn make it impossible for the snake to choke her unintentionally.

But she didn’t do it.

She had the feeling that the length of the whole process depended on the snake.

If she stopped it from tightening its coils, it would just strain itself on her neck, which could as well prolong the process.

Michelle didn’t like that thought.

So, Michelle just decided to bear with it.

It wasn’t like the snake was pressing so hard it would stop the blood flow into her brain or block her breathing.

When the process was finally over (after a good few minutes, maybe even stretching to half an hour) Michelle felt the coil of the snake on her neck loosen.

The little creature collapsed around her neck, slipping to where her neck and shoulder connected like a loose necklace.

The poor thing was completely spent.

Michelle took in a deep breath, enjoying not having her neck restrained.

“What should I do with this little one…?” she couldn’t even see the snake properly on her neck.

And with it around the bottom of her neck, she couldn’t even lower her head so she wouldn’t squish it with her chin.

Somehow, she felt that sending it to her space would be the best option.

She had no time to take care of it, and in the space were the Snow Foxes who were taking care of all the young beasts that had hatched from the eggs she got at the auction house back at the Land of Exile.

As if able to sense Michelle’s thought (in reality knowing her so much to be able to guess what she would assume) Mare spoke up.

“Keep it with you. It’s a baby and since you are its contracted master, you are now like a mother to it. If you put it in the care of the Snow Foxes, it would think you abandoned it. Baby snakes can kill themselves when abandoned. That would hurt you too.”

Michelle was fairly surprised to hear that.

She had never heard of baby snakes killing themselves.

“That can happen? Such a young creature can have the intention to end its own life?”

“Well… yes and no…” Mare’s expression was a bit complicated, showing that explaining the full mechanism wasn’t all that simple.

“The baby can kill itself, but it’s not conscious. The baby doesn’t commit suicide, but the death is caused by its actions.”

Michelle tilted her head as she listened, letting Mare continue.

And the explanation was something she wouldn’t have thought of.

As Mare already said before, the little snake was basically viewing her as its mother.

But it wasn’t just viewing her like that.

Because of the contract, it became extremely reliant on her.

So, if Michelle suddenly disappeared from its side, the reliance on her would make it hostile towards others even if it liked them before.

That could make it refuse to eat until starvation, attack others until it exhausted itself to death, or just start endlessly searching for her and die of exhaustion.

In other words, Michelle had to keep the little snake with her and take care of it herself.

Otherwise she would end up with a corpse to bury and a backlash from the contract.

While Michelle listened to Mare, she noticed that Alexander (standing at the side) had an extremely dark expression.

It wasn’t hard to guess what he was thinking; that tiny creature dared to make Michelle its mother.

It was clear he wanted to kill the snake, but he didn’t since the backlash would hurt Michelle.

Seeing Alexander’s dark face, Michelle showed a slight smirk and walked over to him.

“You know what I just thought of?”

She gently pulled the snake off her neck and lifted it in front of Alexander.

“What?” Alexander’s voice was dark, but with the hints of his usual amusement, making Michelle feel her stomach tighten.

She had to admit, she loved seeing him like that.

“If I’m this little one’s mother…” the first part of Michelle’s sentence made Alexander’s face darken, which in turn made her smile widen.

“…then you are its father, aren’t you?”

The second part of the sentence took Alexander by surprise.

In no time or situation would he expect such logic.

And was it even logic?

His gaze was still as dark as before, but it slid from the snake up to Michelle’s face.

That smiling face that he hated.

If Michelle just took off that damn disguise mask and let him see the face he loved…

Not the face of a stranger…

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