The Castle's Cleaning Lady - Twisted Wonderland Reader insert

Chapter 12: it's a hard life when you're not being paid to do it

"Eh!? You really went to Dwarfs' Mine to find a magic crystal?"

[Name's] jaw slacked at Crowley's perplexed voice, her eyes as wide as dish-plates at the revelation. Ace, Deuce and Grim were all in a similar boat, all exclaiming in disbelief.

"Huh!?"

As they promised, they returned to professor Crowley with the crystal - currently cradled in [Name's] arms like the fragile thing it was. They found him patrolling the entrance hall of floating coffins. To the gang's horror, stunned at their appearance and the crystal in their position.

"I really didn't think... You'd not only go but then come back with a crystal in hand." [Name] handed the crystal to Crowley, a weight pulled from her chest as he retrieved the very crystal the boys and she had slaved over acquiring. "I quietly completed the paperwork for your expulsion."

"Nnga!" Grim snarled, crossing his paws and slapped his hands angrily against [Name's] head as he stood to his hind legs in anger. [Name] winced but it was a harmless bop - like most of Grim's swats. "The nerve of this guy! While we were off fighting some crazy beast!"
"Beast?" Crowley was surprisingly confused.
"You seriously didn't know about that massive ink monster?" [Name] recalled, though now that she recalled, with a hand palming her chin, it wasn't really an "ink" monster at all. "No... that black ooze was much thicker than any ink I've seen..." She didn't recall for much longer, a chill cascading down her spine at the image of the hideous monster that had implanted in her mind, the memory more powerful that the decomposing remnants of it.

"There was a monster there!" Ace deplored, hands on his hips like a disapproving father and a blasé look contorting his lips - something [Name] could deeply relate to. "It was super gross and crazy strong, it was awful!"

"Ink...Could you explain in more detail?" Crowley ushered for Ace, Deuce, Grim and [Name] to accompany him to his office. It was a rather vacant room, with only a clean, large desk roosted in front of a window with bulky rich purple curtains, patterned with green stars and purple crescent moons. Behind the desk bobbed seven portraits - each of the respective Great Seven - enclosed in golden frames. The stone ceilings were tall and the floor was even more vast.

Having no trinkets or little touches an office would usually possess, [Name] felt unease. It was like it was all for show, for even the desk surface was polished spotless, not even a pen or paper except two eerie brass candlesticks with bleeding, white, lit candles.

Crowley sat on the rigid purple leather of the chair on the other side of the desk and motioned to four other chairs that ascended from the ground like ghosts, fazing through the floor like apparitions. [Name] pushed aside her disquietude and took a seat before she synopsized what the gang had witnessed to the best of her ability - the brain cell trio offering their own comments or bragging at certain sections of the story.
Crowley seemed extremely invested in this crude rehashing, clinging to almost every word. [Name] hoped this was a good thing, eyeing the famed Crystal Crowley had propped on his desk.

"Hoh hoohh." Crowley cooed like a dove, leaning interestedly on the back of his gloved hand. "A mysterious monster living in the coal mine. The four of you worked together to defeat it and bring back a magic crystal?"

"We didn't really work together..." Ace refuted, his face awkwardly leaning to one side of his face, trying his best not to cringe.

"It was more like our goals were aligned..." Deuce refused similarly, rubbing the back of his neck.