Ball of Nothing

AN: This is a before and after comparison on Zero's storytelling style as a child and as a teen. Enjoy!

Before

Baal smirked. Zero was way too easy to tease. It's also equally amusing to see how Zero has been talking for more than an hour without showing any signs of getting tired. Baal didn't usually enjoy chatter around him but if it was Zero, he gladly welcomed it. The kid was amusing after all.

"And then we saw this HUGE creature that tried to eat us. Of course, Merlin didn't allow that to happen. With a huge BAMM the monster went fell and I cut it up into smaller pieces so it was easier to eat. Actually, thinking about it, I don't really like the taste of that five-headed monster but it gave me a lot of energy so I guess it was worth it."

Baal snorted. He'd long gotten used to Zero's dramatic storytelling style of interjecting sound effects and personal opinions in the process. Initially, the Demon Lord had to stop the young child to clarify the meaning of those nonsensical words. Zero can sometimes invent language unheard of and Baal found it amusing.

"What happened after that?" he asked to get Zero continuing.

Zero thought for a while to collect his thoughts.

"Oh! Yes, after that we went deeper into the cave but things started getting weird..."

Baal raised a brow. "Weird?"

Zero nodded with the most serious eyes. "The cave retaliated! It sent us hordes of monsters that had special buffs. Merlin had a tricky time disabling everyone but he is a powerful wizard so it was no problem. The problem came in when Merlin couldn't preserve the condition of the monsters when destroying them. It's very difficult to eat monsters that have been poisoned and cursed."

Baal made a face. Why did Zero even try to eat them? Surely there would be better prey that would show up. Was his friend really that badly starved that he would risk a stomach ache eating something so unclean?

"Did you actually eat them?"

Zero thought for a while and nodded. "Yes. Somehow I ate them. The Mind's Eye system has the ability to counter those effects but I really don't think anyone should eat cursed monsters or poisoned ones. It not only tasted awful, I felt numb for a while."

Baal chose not to comment. What Zero complained about was insignificant compared to what it would have done to an ordinary person. Even for Demon Lords, they wouldn't come out unscathed consuming things like that. A long period of recuperation would be needed. Ordinary folks would have died the moment they touched it but Zero only felt numb and complained about the taste. How unbelievable.

"Anyways," Zero continued. "The cave did something unexpected. I must say that it was learning to become smarter after losing so many powerful monsters. It was the first time I didn't find a way to eat the monsters Merlin defeated."

Baal smiled. "What kind of monsters did the cave send?"

Zero shuddered. "Monkfish. Merlin fried them with lightning and the combination of rotting corpses with charred bodies made me ill just by looking at it. I couldn't eat them."

The Demon Lord didn't disagree. For the boy, it must have been a frightening image. The undead weren't very commonly sighted on Earth and meeting Monkfish Warriors after they were electrocuted could be shocking to Zero who had only seen pretty things ever since the Great Gods found him.

"Don't worry about it, once you visit the abyss you will be seeing a lot more terrifying images that will make those Monkfish look cute in comparison."

Zero gaped. "Bell! That doesn't reassure me at all!"

The Demon Lord laughed in the mindscape. Zero was so fun to tease. Most things in the abyss looked normal and expensive. Baal wouldn't take Zero out of domains if he could avoid it. The mutated creatures infected with miasma were dangerous. Even if Zero was invincible, Baal wouldn't risk it.

The friends chatted a little off-topic before Zero remembered he still hadn't told his story.

"Ah! Bell, don't distract me. I was still telling my story!" he sulked.

Baal smiled. "Ok, I won't distract you again. Please continue."

Zero frowned and concentration as he tried to recall where he last left the story. It took him a few minutes to remember exactly what he was talking about and Baal waited patiently, enjoying the show of expressions running across Zero's face in the few minutes. Watching Zero has become his favourite way to kill boredom lately.

"Ah... I remember now. So after the horrible Monkfishes, everything went downhill from there! The cave actually brought out bug monsters!"

Baal grinned and actually laughed at that."Some people eat bugs. They're rumoured to be very nutritious."

Zero belched. "Not the ones in Sleepy Cave. You try having thousands of ants bigger than yourself run after you with their compound eyes, acid dripping jaws and six legs."

Baal pretended to think about it and licked his lips. "Sounds like a good workout for me."

Zero gave his friend an unbelievable look and sighed. "I guess that's what Merlin must have thought too. He basically threw a huge wave of fire spells at them. The ants caught fire very easily and screamed in agony as they ran helter-skelter. It was crazy! You should have seen it. The ants ran into each other and spread the fire to their friends while screaming and spewing acid everywhere. Merlin threw up mana barriers to shield us from the chaos. Ants were dying left and right while smoke filled the cave with fire and acid everywhere. I couldn't even think of what I can and cannot eat."

"To make matters worse, all that screaming made the mother ant come out of hiding. She was huge! Merlin had his shields and barriers in place but that acid rain she vomited on us stank so badly I think Merlin threw up a little."

Baal didn't think that an acid shower would be anything pleasant. The cave insides must have been corroded to the point of no restoration with that amount of damage. Yet all Zero cared about was eating.

"How did you defeat the queen ant?"

Zero shrugged. "The same way we defeated the other ants? Actually, we didn't do much. The fire spread and the queen caught on fire too. It took about thirty minutes for everything to finally die down."

Baal nodded. "In the end, you only ate monsters at the start. There was nothing left at the end of everything?"

Zero shook his head. "However, there still was a loot chest from the cave. Merlin said that dungeons usually had treasures so I was expecting some food. Sadly, it wasn't food in the chest. I got this instead," he said and replicated an image of the seed he found from the chest.

Zero looked at the small seed and sighed. "I tried growing this but it never germinated even after two weeks so Hua Tuo dug it out and told me to keep it. Bell, have you seen a seed like this before?"

The demon Lord took the seed from Zero to examine it. It looked familiar but after so many years of sleeping, his memory was foggy. "Nope. Can't remember. Seeds are sees, aren't they? However, this looks like it could grow into a tree."

Hearing that, Zero's eyes lit up. "Do you think we can eat the fruits from this tree if it grows?"

Baal raised a brow. "Not all trees have edible fruits... you're better off hunting than waiting for this thing to grow."

Zero nodded and dismissed the image. "Might as well. So there. That's one story. Did you like it?"

The cheekiness of the young doctor made the edge of Baal's lips curl. "It was ok."

Zero's jaw dropped at Baal's blatant dismissal. Indignant, Zero put his hands on his hips and ranted out in a scolding tone to how unappreciative Baal was.

"I'll let you know that I'm a great storyteller! Nobody will tell you stories as interesting as I do, Baal you're a terrible friend for not realising how great that was!"

Baal feigned nonchalance that only fuelled Zero's rage further. The Demon Lord laughed when Zero called him names. Teasing the boy can be a lot of fun. If there was one thing better than Zero's stories, it was his inability to come up with insulting names.

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After

Baal missed this. Zero was finally here in person. After waking up from his coma and making up after their fight, the first thing Baal wanted was a story. Of course, a few things took place before that and the Demon Lord couldn't help but feel that his friend had changed a little.

Zero looked older and more mature now but that wasn't everything. The teen had the nerve to negotiate the number of stories earlier with an implied threat of a cliff hanger. If there was something Baal hated more than doing work, it was not knowing secrets. Boredom may kill him but curiosity definitely tortured him. Zero was getting more cunning and Baal wondered if it was the influence of the abyss. Still, he was slightly worried when Zero agreed to the number of stories he wanted without even negotiating.

He was not fooled.

Zero was up to something again and Baal hated this feeling. Of the many things that Zero was, he was also highly unpredictable.

The friends were snuggled under the same warm blanket. Baal had returned to his castle after running errands and was tired. However, he wanted to see Zero first before he fell asleep. They would be busy again very soon. The redemption event really took a lot out of him and it wasn't easy for Baal to recuperate.

"Hey, Zero. When are you going to tell me the stories you owe me?" he called out sleepily.

The Demon Lord was already trying to fight the heaviness of his eyelids but he wanted to hear Zero talk even if it was for five minutes.

Zero looked at the Demon Lord who was now smaller than him. Looking at a child version of Baal when he was in a teenager's body made Zero smile. He felt like a big brother for some reason and thought that he might be able to spoil a sleepy Demon Lord tonight.

Unlike his usual storytelling style, Zero decided to go for a more relaxed style just so Baal could fall asleep quicker.

"This is a story from back when I first came to Endow Hill," Zero started off in a low voice that was almost a whisper.

Baal nodded and blinked, trying to stay awake. Zero knew that his friend was tired so he decided to make it as monotonous as possible. If Baal fell asleep halfway through the story, it would still count as a story told.

"Back then I was with Truen, you have not met him but he was a handsome looking wood elf. I met Truen back at the Mega Gourmet Competition but that's a story for another time. The first time I came to Earth, it was very fascinating. So many different plants and life forms before my eyes and within my reach... back then everything was black. There was no stimulation and nothing other than my own thoughts. I became very excited at being able to discover so many new things and it was overwhelming."

Baal breathing started to even out and Zero smiled. The Demon Lord barely held his eyes open but he was still listening.

"There were some rather colourful looking mushrooms and I had this strange urge to put everything I found interesting in my mouth back then. You should have been there. Truen's face when he discovered that I was eating unknown things scared the poor elf half to death. I think he forgot that Mind's Eye helped me out a lot so getting poisoning might be possible but it'll only last for a while."

Baal didn't respond. His eyes were closed and his breathing slow. Zero smiled and pulled the blanket up to cover the sleeping Demon Lord. Even though nobody was listening to him, Zero continued to tell the story to his sleeping friend.

"There was also rain and Truen taught me about why it rained. We chatted about how other things could start falling from the sky as well but decided that having water falling from the sky was good enough. I also started becoming obsessed with finding leaves. Do you know how difficult it was to find a leaf with the exact shade of green that matches Gaia's hair? We spent so much time doing that and I think it must have bored Truen out of his mind watching me run to every leaf that I saw..."

As Zero spoke, his voice grew softer and quieter. The teenager grew sleepy and before he knew it, they were both cuddled up next to each other fast asleep, the story left with a cliffhanger.