"Xiuluo?" A blush crossed the little face of the pink, eight-armed octopus. "Are you asking me out?"
The Inspector shot him a cold glance. "I'm not your master. Don't play the fool with me."
Boluoye narrowed his bright gemstone eyes. "So you're not asking me out. Then why make the space so small?"
As he spoke, the space available to stand in contracted again. This time, it shrank far more than before.
Boluoye had kept himself about ten meters tall to bind the humans, but the space was now too cramped to hold him. He had no choice but to release them and slowly shrink himself.
Boluoye shrank like an inflatable doll losing air.
With a series of sputtering pops, his body visibly dwindled until he was as tiny as he had been when the Inspector first saw him in the void.
At that size, with his pink coloring and glittering sapphire eyes... there was no denying he looked even more like a doll. No wonder Gruzdaiwald doted on him. Someone who loved collecting magical creatures was bound to be either a plushie lover or a doll lover.
"Xiuluo! Xiuluo! Don't push it! Shrink this space any more and I'll bite you!"
"Stop making a scene. Do you think I want to shrink it?" The Inspector glanced toward the Mystic Fruit in the distance. His meaning was plain: it wasn't his choice; Disorderly Rhythm was forcing his hand.
After the Inspector said that, Boluoye, who had sought his "protection," could hardly keep making a fuss. Still, he seethed. When the space had first contracted, he too had thought the Inspector could no longer withstand the pull and needed to reduce the area exposed to it. But on reflection, if the pull outside truly was forcing him back, there should at